emakie

Emakie is a term found in some scholarly writings to refer to the painting component of emaki, the illustrated handscrolls of traditional Japanese art. The word is often treated as a variant spelling of emaki-e (絵巻絵) or used loosely to describe the painted scenes within an emaki scroll. Emakie denotes the visual narratives that accompany or illustrate accompanying text as the scroll is unfurled.

Historically, emaki emerged in Japan during the Heian period (roughly the 9th to 12th centuries) as a means of transforming literary and religious narratives into portable, visual form. They reached a peak in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, when large, elaborately painted scrolls were produced for aristocratic and religious audiences. Notable examples include Genji Monogatari Emaki, a late 12th to early 13th-century illustrate of The Tale of Genji, and various Buddhist tales and courtly scenes. The production often involved collaboration between painters, scribes, and calligraphers, with workshops centred in cultural hubs such as Kyoto and Nara.

Form and technique characteristically feature a combination of painted imagery, calligraphy, and occasional inscriptions. Materials vary but commonly include paper or silk supports, mineral pigments, gold and silver foils, and sometimes gofun (a white pigment). The images are carefully framed to progress a narrative, using perspective, stylization, and sometimes scroll-specific devices like sequential panels or continuous scenes.

Today, emaki and the practice of emakie provide important insights into Japanese visual culture, court life, religious storytelling, and the interplay between text and image in medieval and early modern Japan.