A Disguised Scene from The Tale of Genji (Fūryū Yatsushi Genji), Chapter 33, “Wisteria Leaves (Fuji no uraba)”

A Disguised Scene from The Tale of Genji (Fūryū Yatsushi Genji), Chapter 33, Wisteria Leaves (Fuji no uraba), is a sophisticated literary parody in which Chobunsai Eishi recasts a moment from the eleventh-century novel in the dress and manners of late eighteenth-century Edo. Chapter 33 of Genji centers on the long-awaited union between Yūgiri and his beloved Kumoinokari, with wisteria blossoms serving as symbolic accompaniment to their reunion. Eishi follows the furyū yatsushi convention by stripping the scene of overt Heian costume and presenting his figures as fashionable contemporaries, leaving the chapter title and a few well-chosen motifs to signal the literary reference. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves this impression. Recognition of the source was part of the pleasure for Edo viewers, who took pride in detecting Genji allusions in fashionable bijin-ga. The composition emphasizes the slender, elongated figures Eishi favored, their robes flowing in long, controlled lines that match the wisteria's hanging clusters. As Edo bijin-ga, the print is both a fashion plate and a quiet act of literary scholarship, the kind of double pleasure his cultivated audience prized. His Kano-trained ukiyo-e background, shaped by his apprenticeship under Kano Eisen-in, is evident in the disciplined draftsmanship and refined palette that distinguish the design from livelier contemporary prints. Chobunsai Eishi here exemplifies the synthesis on which his reputation rested: a deep engagement with classical literature joined to the visual vocabulary of popular Edo printmaking, producing images that addressed both connoisseurs and ordinary viewers.