Art history

Potential for Permanence

Tosa Mitsuoki communicates the skill of the influential writer and philosopher Murasaki

Shikibu through the ​Portrait-Icon of Murasaki Shikibu ​and expresses the value of the writing

process while also displaying his own unparalleled attention to contrast and detail. He divides the

scroll into three distinct areas, each corresponding to an imperative and unique part of the

process of Murasaki’s writing: the action of writing, the physical calligraphy, and the potential

for writing. The artist employs contrast in this scroll to illuminate that for Murasaki Shikibu, the

process of writing is as much about the potential for writing as it is about writing itself.

Mitsuoki chooses to portray the act of writing in the most active, and dynamic part of the

scroll. For the purposes of this paper, “writing” refers to Murasaki’s relationship to both writing

and philosophy. The viewer is immediately drawn to the portrait of Murasaki Shikibu, who sits

in an enclosed green rectangle in the bottom half of the scroll. Murasaki is wearing eight layers

of cloth, which fan like the pages of a book to reveal a sliver of every perfectly linear layer. Her

hair cascades down her shoulders, and flows like a stream through the folds of the fabric, slicing

through the bright green cloth like ink. In fact, though the overall shape formed by Murasaki’s

gown is organic, the artist deliberately draws our attention to the distinctly geometric origins of

the cloth, by creating a contrast between jade green and crimson tones, and drawing the viewer’s

eye to the crisp linear edges of the fabric. The fabric is like a crumpled piece of paper; it is

geometric in origin, but shaped by human movement. On the desk that overlaps the gown, Tosa

Mitsuoki deliberately arranges the white scrolls and the red tray to match the layers of fabric that

Murasaki wears, so from a distance, the desk appears to be one with the writer. Unlike her dress,

however, the stiffly geometric form of the Murasaki’s desk does not crumple and fold. The

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contrast between the desk and the fabric reflect Murasaki’s relationship between the potential for

writing and writing itself. The desk holds the tools necessary for calligraphy, but it is Murasaki’s

ideas and her controlled movement of the distinctly linear brush, balanced delicately in her hand,

that will bridge the transition between contemplation and permanent calligraphy.

In the Metropolitan’s display of ​Portrait-Icon of Murasaki Shikibu​, the curator gives

viewers the privilege of visualizing the writing instruments on Murasaki’s desk by displaying a

lacquer writing box in the same case. The inside of the box depicts an intricate nature scene that

clearly required deliberate effort from a highly skilled artist, and speaks to the value that was

placed upon writing instruments, as well as to the attitude the owner of such an item has towards

the process of calligraphy. The box is one that itself is a piece of art and serves a purpose beyond

that of containment. A writing box is a tool that allows writers, like Murasaki, to transition

between contemplation and calligraphy by using structured, tangible items, to organize abstract

ideas into deliberate calligraphic forms. The fact that the tools for this transition are themselves

valuable artwork highlights the idea that for Murasaki the potential for writing is a process that

demands as much artistic and contemplative skill as the final product of calligraphy.

In her portrait, Murasaki appears to be musing, with her eyes looking up towards the

calligraphy at the top of the page. “The inscriptions list the four stages of Tendai Buddhist

contemplation (shimon) that Murasaki was said to have mastered, along with two of her waka

(thirty-one-syllable poems) that speak to life’s impermanence (mujōkan)” . The top section of 1

the scroll is a bold, simple rectangle composed of a white section, and a square orange section,

1 Metmuseum.org, , accessed April 01, 2019, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/720563?exhibitionId={a26bd196-381b-4ddd-b007-ad6a1ff64b4b }&oid=720563&pkgids=563&pg=0&rpp=20&pos=36&ft=*&offset=20.

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and each area is filled with writing. The simple, flat geometric shapes outline and restrain the

dynamic calligraphy. The artist uses the geometric, distinctly linear forms of the rectangles to

permanently tether the contrastingly organic forms of the brush strokes. Mitsuoki illustrates

Murasaki gazing at the calligraphy to emphasize that for the Murasaki, the final product of her

writing is not possible without Murasaki’s ability to transform contemplation and thought into

deliberate words.

Between the calligraphy at the top of the scroll and the portrait of Murasaki in the bottom

section, Mitsuoki chooses to leave a blank page, highlighting the value of the potential. This

non-space, an area of the scroll that remains untouched by the artist, differs strikingly from the

meticulous dynamism of Murasaki’s portrait, and the controlled brush strokes at the top of the

scroll. The non-space contains neither geometric forms, nor organic forms, yet it holds the

potential for either or both. This part of the scroll is both the absence of action, on the part of the

artist, but also the potential for future action, just like the rolled up scrolls on Murasaki’s writing

desk. The space is invaded only by Murasaki’s head, a choice that Mitsuoki makes to reflect the

value of the writer’s contemplation and thought in transforming non-space into tangible ideas.

By dividing the scroll into three distinct sections, Mitsuoki outlines the three essential

aspects of the writing process, and visualizes Murasaki’s attitude towards the contrast between

contemplation and physical writing. Through the vividly colorful and meticulously detailed

portrait of Murasaki, Mitsuoki allows the writer to occupy all three stages of writing: potential

for writing, the action of writing, and the final product of calligraphy, simultaneously. In doing

so, he highlights Murasaki’s relationship to writing as a process where the potential for writing

and the writing itself are not only equal, but imperative to the final product.

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