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Parody of the tale of Nasu no Yoichi
Kawamata Tsuneyuki 川又常行 (1676?-1741?)
1615-1868
- Medium
- Ink, color and gold on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 84.7 x 37.1 cm (33 3/8 x 14 5/8 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
In Heike monogatari, a long narrative account of the war between the Taira and Minamoto families in the late twelfth century, the warrior Nasu no Yoichi (flourished late 12th century), who fought on the side of the Minamoto, shot a single arrow into a fan held in place by Lady Tamamushi. His perfect shot from horseback began the Battle of Yashima in 1185. Here the tale is enacted in a modern setting from the time of the painting's creation. A well-dressed man aims an arrow at a fan held aloft by a young female shamisen musician. Two courtesans wearing lavish kimonos sit languidly beside their tobacco set on the veranda of an elite brothel. The artist uses mitate--a literary and artistic device in which unexpected parallels are drawn between dissimilar elements--in this painting that evokes a famous battle scene in the unlikely setting of the contemporary "floating world."
