The Tale of Genji is the oldest epic of Japan, written about the beginning of the 11th Century. The author is a lady attendant of the Imperial Court. Murasaki Shikibu, who began writing these tales after the death of her husband in 1001, pursuing her happy memories of her own past love and a captivatingly ideal world of love never to be realized.

The hero is an extraordinarily handsome and highly intelligent Prince, Hikaru Genji (Shining Prince), a pleasure seeker in the gougeous and indeed decadent medieval Japanese Imperial Court. A total of 54 volumes of episodic tales recorded his free and unrestrained love-affairs with various types of women in a kaleidoscopic pattern of love which includes his mother-in-low, a married lady, and even a girl fostered by him, later to be his wife. Love is indeed transience.

A series of Amano's pictures of Genji first appeared in the 2 volume collection of a modern Japanese version by Setouchi Jakucho published in 1993 as illustrations made lithograph and silkscreen. But what we have now triumphantly and independently expresses the artist's own realm of Beauty and transcendent Ethos.

A gilded splendor is achieved, created by a surging variety of color including stylized patterns of flowers, birds, moon and stars traced with kimono-like delicacy to overflow into a visionary space. The delicate brush work of line exemplifies elegance of human body and flowing hair. Amano achieves a unique realization of intricate medieval imaging and timeless creative art which arrests and absorbs the modern beholder.