Yomogiu (from In the Garden of Genji)

The fifteenth chapter, often translated as a waste of weeds or the wormwood patch, describes the rediscovery of Suetsumuhana, a former lover Genji had forgotten during his years of exile, living in a dilapidated mansion overgrown with wormwood (yomogi) and other weeds. Miyayama's print likely focuses on the tangled vegetation that gives the chapter its name — the feathery, deeply lobed mugwort leaf rendered through the dense bitten line of deep etching against gold leaf. The contrast between weed and gold ground carries the chapter's central image: a noble household reduced to ruin yet preserving an inner dignity. Within the series Yomogiu offers Miyayama an opportunity for a more graphically dense plate; where chapters such as Suma or Akashi favour open expanses, Yomogiu typically fills its sheet with overlapping foliage in the manner of a Rinpa grass-and-flower screen.