Lesley Downer
Album Notes
The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion
By Melissa McCormick
Princeton University Press 253pp £35
In 1510 a wealthy Japanese man called Sue (pronounced Sué) Saburō took possession of a magnificent album of paintings and calligraphy illustrating The Tale of Genji. He had commissioned it for his father, Sue Hiroaki, then governor of the province of Hyōgo (now Kobe) and a famous scholar. A few years later Hiroaki had the album leaves pasted onto screens to be used as a backdrop for a series of lectures on The Tale. The album ended up at Harvard Art Museums.
Melissa McCormick, professor of Japanese art and culture at Harvard University, recently dated the making of the album to 1509 and identified its patron. She has now put together this beautiful book, which reproduces the whole album page by page while also providing a detailed and very illuminating
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Don't ask about the dress code, don't talk about your spouse too much, flirt with everyone
Andrew Martin on the rules, pleasures and pitfalls of living in Paris
Andrew Martin - Bobos versus Beaufs
Andrew Martin: Bobos versus Beaufs - Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century by Simon Kuper
literaryreview.co.uk
for the latest edition of @Lit_Review I worked on some excellent pieces – @MortenHoiJensen on Kafka
@ellafox_m on @mimpathy (Honor Levy)
@profrhodrilewis on Shakespeare novels
@edcumming on Kaliane Bradley
@zoeguttenplan on @NationalTheatre's Dickens show
wrote about MY FIRST BOOK (@GrantaBooks) for @Lit_Review, a book that I think makes difficult things look very easy: