Sugawara no Michizane Being Exiled to Dazaifu - Solis Prints

A detailed six-panel screen depicting the historical exile of Sugawara no Michizane, rendered in the traditional Yamato-e style with gold leaf.

This composition depicts the historical exile of the scholar and poet Sugawara no Michizane to Dazaifu, a narrative frequently explored in Japanese art. The scene is presented across a six-panel folding screen, or byōbu, a format designed to divide interior spaces while providing a surface for large-scale pictorial storytelling. The artist employs the traditional Yamato-e style, characterised by the use of gold leaf clouds to separate distinct narrative episodes and create a sense of atmospheric depth.

The visual arrangement follows a right-to-left progression, typical of Japanese narrative scrolls and screens. The procession of figures, including attendants and mounted guards, accompanies the ox-drawn carriage carrying the exiled official. The figures are rendered with precise detail, reflecting the courtly attire of the Heian period, despite the screen likely dating to a later era. The use of gold leaf across the background serves to unify the disparate elements of the composition, providing a luminous surface that reflects light within a room.

Stylised green hills and pine trees frame the action, acting as markers for the journey through the Japanese countryside. The contrast between the metallic gold ground and the opaque mineral pigments used for the figures and vegetation is a hallmark of this decorative tradition. By obscuring parts of the scene with clouds, the artist directs the viewer's attention to specific moments in the narrative, such as the departure and the travel through the mountains. This work functions as both a historical record and a decorative object, typical of the high-status commissions found in Japanese residences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.