In Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki, how is the Style and composition discussed?
The Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki, like all emakimono of its time, was created in the then fashionable Yamato-e style of Japanese painting. It is similar in style to the Ban Dainagon Ekotoba, which dates from around the same time, and is attributed to Tokiwa Mitsunaga; that work has brilliant colours used for costumes and accessories, but is in a more realistic than poetic tone.Mitsunaga was a late Heian and early Kamakura period Yamato-e master: the records, and also the similarities in pictorial style, suggest that he was also the author of the Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki, but that hypothesis is questionable according to art historians, because of the stylistic variations and the artistic superiority of the Ban Dainagon Ekotoba. Rather, the artist was probably a painter from the capital Kyoto and contemporary of Mitsunaga.The composition of the Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki is based on repetition in the six scenes of the same easily identifiable decoration: the tower, the Imperial Palace and the palace gate. This is the simplest approach to suggest the temporal evolution of a story in narrative paintings, used in older works like the Kokawa-dera Engi Emaki. Perspective is rendered in a cavalier unrealistic manner, with long diagonals, while no landscape appears, except trees that decrease in size as they approach the horizon.
The very colourful, predominantly red paintings were realised using the tsukuri-e technique: first, a sketch of the outlines was done, then the opaque colour was added en aplat, and finally the outlines and small details were redrawn in ink over the paint.The artist seems to have had limited knowledge of the ancient Tang dynasty China, where the story takes place: rather the work is inspired by Japanese Buddhist paintings of the 11th and 12th centuries, usually based on Chinese models.The faces of the Chinese people in the work are very expressive, almost caricatural, but not very individualised. Kibi, for his part, is painted in a manner close to hikime kagibana: a white and expressionless face with a few features for the eyes, nose and mouth, a refined method in vogue in the works of the aristocrats of the Imperial Court such as the Genji Monogatari Emaki, here modified in relation to some details such as the moustache and the eyelids.
Kamakura Kamakura period ink Heian Genji Monogatari Emaki Japanese painting Kokawa-dera Engi Emaki hikime kagibana Yamato-e emakimono Tokiwa Mitsunaga Ban Dainagon Ekotoba Tang dynasty Kibi en aplat