Genji emaki, a complete set of four prints, illustrating four chapters of the Genji monogatari - The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century. Four chapters are illustrated:Akashi, Matsukaze, Hotaru and Wakana, chapters 13, 18, 25 and 34 respectively.
So, here’s a cool thing that came up while doing art direction for Eagle Princess. While looking for references for historical Mongol army camps, I found a set of pictures of Qing dynasty hunting and war camps. Which is cool enough by itself, but even better, there were two paintings of the same scene.
This one by Chinese artist Ding Guanpeng 丁觀鵬:
and this one by Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione 郎世寧:
It’s really interesting to compare them! The top painting comes from a series of paintings commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor to commemorate his military victories in Xinjiang. According to the Baidu entry, the original drafts were by Castiglione and other painters, and then Deng Guanpeng and his assistants made paintings based on these drafts. A lot of the examples of Castiglione art I see are portraits and other things that emphasize him as an individual artist. Here we get to see him as part of a big government art project. And not even the final part!
(There’s also some pretty terrible history here: the military victories being celebrated in these pictures is the conquest and mass killing of the Dzungar Mongols.)
Hi, my name is Ella and I live in Melbourne, Australia.
