Night Attack on the Sanjo Palace

When we went through the Japanese art, my mind was like, Wow, that is amazing. The Japanese have this style that flows and is very open, from the mountains in the hanging scrolls to the zen gardens. This particular painting is a historical recording of a battle on the Sanjo Palace. There are actually several paintings about this event and they are all included in an illustrated scroll. This would have been something that people could have opened up like a history book today.
This was a time when the samurai were becoming big in power, and the emperors were merely just puppets for the people.

This picture is during the Heiji disturbance (1159), and it wasn't even that big of a deal. It was just a small skirmish that was made into a big deal. There were two different groups that were trying to get the most people to follow them and thus take over the capital. Fujiwara Shinzei and Taira Kiyomori made up one faction, and they actually gained more influence, and the other group was led by Fujiwara Nobuyori and Minamoto Yoshitomo. But Nobuyori and Yoshitomo actually captured the emperor, and whisked him away and then set the whole palace on fire.

I just love the way the fire is illustrated. They captured the white hot of the fire and the flying sparks in the black of the smoke. It is such a contrast compared to the hanging scrolls that have large landscape scenes in it. If you look very closely, you can make out the heads that Nobuyori and Yoshitomo had cut off the partisans that worked at the palace. The billows of the fire toward the right of the image seem to have the same curves and lines as they draw dragons. I almost feel as if there is going to be a dragon coming out of the fire.

These are some of the other images that I found, that would be in the scroll.