Akashi (from In the Garden of Genji)

The thirteenth chapter continues Genji's exile, this time on the Akashi shore, where a storm drives him further along the Inland Sea coast and into the household of the lay priest of Akashi, whose daughter becomes mother of Genji's eventual imperial line. Miyayama's print likely takes up either the music of the koto — the instrument by which the Akashi Lady is first introduced to Genji — or the layered horizons of pine, beach, and sea that Heian poetry assigned to the place name. Aquatint allows a tonal gradient close to the bokashi of woodblock printing, suited to the misted atmosphere of the chapter, while the deep-etched contour gives the spare image its graphic anchor. From Akashi onwards Genji's fortunes begin to rise, and the gold-leaf ground of subsequent plates returns to a more confident radiance.