Ban Dainagon ekotoba (The Tale of the Major Counsellor Ban)
伴大納言絵詞
Artwork · attributed to Tokiwa Mitsunaga · 1157–1180 · emakimono · Idemitsu Museum of Arts
Three handscrolls telling a scandal of 866: the Ōten Gate of the imperial palace burnt down, and the major counsellor Tomo no Yoshio (Ban Dainagon) blamed his rival, the minister Minamoto no Makoto, until a quarrel between two boys revealed that he had set the fire himself; he was sent into exile. The scroll opens with a long passage of crowds running towards the gate in flames; inside the palace Emperor Seiwa and his grandfather Fujiwara no Yoshifusa confer in the Seiryōden. The children’s fight is told in one continuous picture — the fight, the father kicking the other boy, the gossip spreading through the neighbourhood — and the grief of the Ban household with the faces shown openly. The figures are drawn with a free calligraphic line as in otoko-e, but with the bright, thick colours of tsukuri-e. Attributed to Tokiwa Mitsunaga on the style of the Nenjū gyōji emaki; dated between 1157 and 1180. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 104, 121–122, figs. 127, 146–147. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.