The Matsukaze Chapter of the Tale of Genji (from the series The Tale of Genji in Elegant Modern Dress)

Designed about 1786, this Chobunsai Eishi print belongs to his series The Tale of Genji in Elegant Modern Dress, in which the chapters of Murasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century romance are reinterpreted as mitate scenes set in late-eighteenth-century Edo. The sheet represents the Matsukaze chapter, named for one of the two sisters in the village of Suma whom Prince Genji encounters during his exile. Eishi presents the subject through contemporary beauties whose bearing alludes to the chapter rather than illustrating it literally. As a Kano-trained ukiyo-e master, Eishi imports the measured composition of an academy painter into the Edo bijin-ga genre. The figures occupy the sheet with calm spacing, their robes described in long, evenly weighted lines, and a discreet element of landscape, perhaps a pine or distant shoreline, supplies the chapter's identifying reference. Soft greys, pale indigos, and muted ochres dominate the palette, allowing the figures' silhouettes to carry the design. The Cleveland Museum of Art preserves an impression of the print as accession 1956.754, where it is identified with the Matsukaze chapter of the series. The print is characteristic of Eishi's broader project of dignifying ukiyo-e through classical literary allusion, and it sits comfortably alongside his other Genji designs of the late 1780s and early 1790s, when his Edo bijin-ga were avidly collected by literary samurai and refined merchant patrons.