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E-awase

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Japanese game

E-awase
絵合
An Ukiyo-e print from Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s e-awase series. The image depicts Tamatori, Fujiwara no Kamatari’s driver, fighting an octopus, 1845-6
Years activeKamakura period
Players2 teams
SkillsPainting

E-awase (絵合, painting contest) was a pastime popular among Japanese nobles during the Kamakura period, although its history dates back to the Heian.

In an e-awase contest, participants were divided into two teams, and created paintings on a predetermined topic, which were then judged by their peers, as in the older uta-awase poetry contests. It was a popular entertainment at parties and social gatherings. An e-awase contest of this type appears in The Tale of Genji, forming the central theme of chapter 17.

An alternative version of the picture contest was simpler, with players matching or associating pre-painted images. This was a development of an older game known as kai-awase (貝合 "shell matching"). Matching scenes would be painted on the inner surfaces of a number of clam shells; these would then be spread on the floor, image side down, and turned over by competitors who would attempt to match the corresponding images.

References

  1. ^ Louis Frédéric (2002). Japan Encyclopedia. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  2. Allen Hockley; Koryūsai Isoda (2003). The Prints of Isoda Koryūsai: Floating World Culture and Its Consumers in Eighteenth-century Japan. University of Washington Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-295-98301-1. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  3. Samuel L. Leiter (2002). A Kabuki Reader: History and Performance. M.E. Sharpe. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-7656-0704-1. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  4. Miyeko Murase; New York Public Library (1986). Tales of Japan: scrolls and prints from the New York Public Library. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-19-504020-3. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  5. Jacob Raz (1983). Audience and Actors: A Study of Their Interaction in the Japanese Traditional Theatre. Brill Archive. p. 67. ISBN 978-90-04-06886-5. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  6. Murasaki Shikibu (24 April 2003). The Tale of Genji. Penguin Books Limited. p. 561. ISBN 978-0-14-192796-1. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  7. Mary Flanagan (30 September 2009). Critical Play: Radical Game Design. MIT Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-262-06268-8. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  8. Asahi Shinbunsha (1996). Japan quarterly. Asahi Shimbun. p. 73. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
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