Fujibakama　藤袴

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

A pictorial subject taken from the "Purple Trousers" (Fujibakama, also translated as Mistflowers), Chapter 30 of GENJI MONOGATARI 源氏物語 (The Tale of Genji). Fujibakama, Eupatorium fortunei, is a purple autumn flower related to the chrysanthemum, also sometimes called agueweed or hemp agrimony. When *Tamakazura 玉鬘 vacillates as to whether to present herself at court or not, she finds herself the continued object of attention from suitors old and new. In the episode most frequently chosen for illustration from this chapter, *Yuugiri 夕霧 (Genji's son), comes in the autumn to deliver a letter of condolence to Tamakazura on the death of a relative. Now, aware that she is not in fact his sister as he had previously thought (see *Miyuki 行幸) he pushes a letter with a bouquet of fujibakama under her curtain and makes clear through a poem his own intentions. But Tamakazura rebuffs him.

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*genji-e 源氏絵

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