Yuugao　夕顔

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

A pictorial subject taken from "Evening Faces" Yuugao, Chapter 4 of GENJI MONOGATARI 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji). In this chapter, Genji, on his way to visit his lover the Lady Rokujou, Rokujou no Miyasudokoro 六条御息所, stops to visit his sick wet-nurse. He notices flowers called "evening faces" (Lagenaria siceraria, a kind of gourd with white, round blooms that last a single summer evening) growing on a trellis of a neighboring house. When his man goes to pick one for him, a young girl appears and offers a fan on which to place the flowers. Genji becomes intimate with this "Lady of the Evening Faces" and one evening in the Eighth month he takes Yuugao to a villa outside of town. Then, a spirit possesses and kills Yuugao, who Genji later realizes was the woman whom his friend Tou no Chuujou 頭中将 had spoken of during their "rainy night discussion" Amayo-no-Shinasadame 雨夜の品定め (see *Hahakigi 帚木). In painting, this chapter is often suggested by the motif of the white flowers on a trellis or fan.

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*genji-e 源氏絵

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