At Prince Genji's court

Enter the Court of Prince Genji ... 1000 years of Japanese imagination

It's a fascinating, beautiful exhibition, featuring all the themes of traditional Japan that have so inspired artists.

• At the heart of the fabulous Musée Guimet, the exhibition invites us to dream of the Japan of the imperial court around the influence of a seminal novel, "The so-called Genji".
• We're soon immersed in the Heian era (794-1185) and its courtly art.
• This was a unique period of freedom for women in Japanese history, when the arts and literature were promoted.
• "The Tale of Genji" was born in this context. It is considered one of the most important stories in Japanese culture.
• Written in XI^th century by the poet Murasaki Shikibu, it has generated for a thousand years an extremely rich iconography that influenced even contemporary mangaka
• The novel recounts the life of one of these imperial princes, an extraordinary beauty, poet and charmer of women.
• All the ingredients of romance are present: There's the courtesan, the unrepentant seducer, the fascination of power, the different social classes, money, and even the scorned wife and jealous husband...
• The exhibition shows the influence of this novel on creativity: printsThe range includes fabrics, kimonos, sculptures, paintings and precious objects, including the lacquer boxes of an illustrious collector ... Marie-Antoinette!
• Gold lacquer, silk, mother-of-pearl and silver inlays ... everything is refinement
• To continue, a whole room - undoubtedly the favorite of our teens - is devoted to animated films and the presentation of mangas that still inspire artists to tell this story in the 21st century
• The second part focuses on Itarô Yamaguchi (1901-2007), a master weaver from Kyoto's Nishijin district. Here, we discover the meticulousness of the 4 rolls he for 30 years and again on the theme of "The so-called Genji". A jewel on display for the first time