Yomogiu (from In the Garden of Genji)
蓬生
- Medium:
- Aquatint, deep etching, gold leaf
- Image courtesy of
- Hiroaki Miyayama Official Site — In the Garden of Genji
蓬生
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.
![[Garden of] Taj Mahal, No. 1 (Taji Maharu no niwa, dai ichi) by Hiroshi Yoshida](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/230993a7-d4f0-c979-c267-127d48e1ef1c/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
Taji Maharu no niwa, dai ichi
1931
Color woodblock print; oban
January 1938
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
1938
Color woodblock print; oban
10/70, 1966
Woodblock print
Yomogiu (from In the Garden of Genji) (蓬生) was created by Hiroaki Miyayama (宮山 広明).
Yomogiu (from In the Garden of Genji) depicts gardens and literary.
