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The 27th Artist Room “The Tale of Genji” was started by Takushi Mizuno on October 17, 2016 and completed on December 1, 2016.
Mizuno, illustrator as well as art director, had chosen and completed the room with “The Tale of Genji” as the motif. “The Tale of Genji is a literary work and cultural heritage. I expressed the mythical atmosphere which I felt through the story in this Artist Room.”
Drawn on the five small and large walls are the scenes from The Tale of Genji, through Mizuno’s imagination. Soft, feminine women are painted using Poster Colors and diluting it with water, to portray the sophisticated, graceful world of Heian Period.
Park Hotel Tokyo hopes that through the stay in Artist Room The Tale of Genji, guests will enjoy the glamourous lifestyle and atmosphere of the Heian Period over 1000 years ago.
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be inside a novel?
How it would feel to be inside the famous “The tale of Genji”.
This time I would like to show you the room painted by the artist Takushi Mizuno based on The Tale of Genji, known as the oldest novel in the world and representative of Japanese literature.
On the walls, you can see scenes as described in the novel. If you look at the faces of the characters painted in a simple design and clear colors reminiscent of the Heian Era, I think you would be able to feel what those characters were feeling at that moment.
On the desk in the room, you can also find a copy of “The Tale of Genji” so you can spend your time, leisurely reading it if you so wish. As the room is facing the sea, you can see how the room gets a new atmosphere while it is dyed by the light of dawn.
Room #3127 | Completion Date: December 2016
“The Tale of Genji” decorating this room is a literary work and cultural heritage that Japan is proud of. This long romantic novel was written by a woman named Murasaki Shikibu who lived in the flourishing dynasty of the Heian period of our country, about one thousand years ago. Eventually it became a manuscript, and some picture stories are also a “National Treasure”.
Though the hero was born as a prince, his position was quite unstable, so he tried to overcome his inferiority with his talents.
This story is the tale of romance with beautiful ladies and the fate of a prince, born with a rare, handsome face and was proficient in literature and sports, and blessed with many talents and charm. It is a story spanning four generations with the hero, “Hikaru Genji”, at the center.
Well to express this, I had been reading what was written by many contemporary writers, and finally I got it all together. But when I was asked to paint all of this in detail in this room, I could not imagine the appearance, colors and shapes at that time long ago. So I gazed at the works of famous painters who had taken up this story, and tried sorting them out in my head while referring to explanations and illustrations. As a result, for me, this story was more than a fiction, it was a “myth”.
Whatever kind of harmony is created when one views the five small and large walls in this room, it cannot of course reproduce a full-length picture scroll. When in the Artist Room The Tale of Genji, I hope guests will understand and enjoy the drawings, taking these factors into consideration.
Takushi Mizuno
Graphic design, Art direction
Illustrator Member of ADC
From college days I have been diluting Poster Colors with water, and painted them over and over to try and achieve a soft, feminine expression of women. In 1963, using a “Rotring” purchased in Germany during overseas training, started to draw women in the world of black and white with this pen.
