Yamato-e, Heian Japanese painting
Japanese stories on long scrolls: a view from above through removed roofs, mood in dense colour
How to recognise it
- Long horizontal handscroll (emaki)
- 'Blown-off roof' view into rooms from above
- Stylized faces: line eyes, hook nose
- Dense opaque colour and gold dust
- Diagonal lines of screens, verandas and walls
Why it emerged
After Japan halted embassies to China in 894, the Heian court cultivated its own taste: aristocrats who wrote novels and poems in kana commissioned paintings of Japanese subjects as a counterpart to Chinese-style kara-e.
Examples
Genji Monogatari Emakic. 1130Oldest surviving illustrated Genji; set the canon of the 'blown-off roof' view
Ban Dainagon Ekotobac. 1170 · attributed to Tokiwa MitsunagaA lively scroll on the burning of the Ōtenmon gate: crowds of expressive faces and raging fire
Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (Scrolls of Frolicking Animals)c. 1150Rabbits, frogs and monkeys parody humans — often called the ancestor of manga
Heiji Monogatari Emakic. 1260The night attack on Sanjō Palace: the classic war scroll of flames and cavalryMore in this style
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