The
Genji scroll figures are also heavily clothed. The women in particular
wear robes of many layers, all subtly varying in texture and color, with
only the tiny hands and rounded faces peering out of the billowing garments.
We must remember that these indoor settings were dark and shadowy, illuminated
at most by flickering lamps. We can thus appreciate the sensuous description
by the modern novelist Tanizaki, who wrote, "Were it not for shadows, there
would be no beauty. Our ancestors made of woman an object inseparable from
darkness. They hid as much of her as they could in shadows, concealing
her arms and legs in the folds of long sleeves and skirts, so that one
part and one only stood out—the face."