SAMURAI ART: Tale of Haseo|書籍線上App不用買-HotApp4Game

Enjoying the historical works of art by quite new method

Without going out of living room, you can enjoy the entire artistic scroll of 20 meters, which is exhibited only partially in the museum, by just scrolling it with your finger on your Android mobile device.

The valuable cultural properties, well-known as the legacy of the Samurai Lord Hosokawa family, are now kept in the archive of the Eisei-Bunko Museum.

The collection of the museum has about 6,000 works of art and 48,000 historical documents including 8 national treasures and 31 important cultural properties. The legacy of the family that dates back to Warring States Period, such as Letters from Oda Nobunaga, Gorinnosho (the swordsmanship teaching book by Miyamoto Musashi), or the belongings of Hosokawa Gracia, makes one of the most precious collection not only for Japan but for the whole world.

about "Illustrated scrolls of the Tale of Haseo"

Important Cultural Property in Japan

Kamakura Period - Nanbokucho Period (14th century)

Height: 29.6 cm, Length: 1001.9 cm

This picture scroll depicts a strange story about Kino Haseo (845-912), a well-known scholar of Chinese classics during the early Heian Period. On the scroll, which is based on a story recorded in “Zoku Kyokunsho” (compiled in the early 14th century), Haseo wins a woman of peerless beauty in a game of dice with a ogre, but because he fails to wait the promised 100 days to consummate their relationship, the woman turns into water and disappears. Because the scroll's main elements, including characters, trees and buildings, are depicted up close from a low angle, they seem emphatically larger. Meanwhile, along with abandoning the traditional Kamakura Period style for painting trees, it is recognized as the first appearance of Nanbokucho Period techniques such as hazy geometric shapes and pictures within pictures. These aspects of the scroll, thought to be created across both the Kamakura and Nanbokucho periods, exemplify its transitional character.