Battle of the Carriages

This screen depicts the struggle over viewing spots for the Kamo Festival procession that appears in The Tale of Genji. It is color on paper and measures 175.7 x 370.8 cm. It is designated an Important Cultural Property. Four panels are joined: on the right half a procession of people and horses advances in good order, while on the left half people and ox carriages are in confusion.

The conspicuous figure on a black horse at the far right is Hikaru Genji, and the place is the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto. The three ox carriages lined up below the second panel from the left belong to the party of Genji's principal wife, Aoi no Ue. Her attendants scuffle as they try to push away the carriages that had arrived earlier, and among those was the carriage of Lady Rokujo, who had been Genji's lover. The struggle over a viewing place thus becomes a struggle between two women over Genji.

It was originally the sliding-door paintings of the Kujo Mansion, newly built by Yodo-dono, a concubine of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, for her adopted daughter Sadako, who was to marry, and the groom, and traces of the door handles remain on the surface. The composition, which arranges the brawl in a ring, is superb, and through this commission Sanraku won the trust and patronage of the Kujo family. The onlookers are painted not in the dress of the ancient tale but in the fashions of Sanraku's own time.