THE BATTLES OF YASHIMA AND ICHINOTANI FROM THE TALE OF THE HEIKE

This pair of screens is depicting the final two battles of the Genpei Wars, fought between the Minamoto (Genji) and Taira (Heike) clans in the 1180s. The right screen shows the battle in the spring of 1184 at Ichinotani (near present-day Kobe). The battle begins with the charge of the Minamoto troops down the Hiyodori Pass, at the top of the second panel. The Taira are driven from their improvised fortress and escape into overloaded boats. When the Taira were defeated in the naval engagement at Dannoura in 1185, Taira no Tokushi threw herself into the sea, holding the boy emperor Antoku (1178-1185) in her arms. She survived but the boy perished.
After their defeat in 1184, the Taira retreat to Yashima, on the coast of the island of Shikoku. In 1185, a Minamoto squadron arrives and forces the Taira out to sea, as shown on the left screen. For a nearly identical left-hand screen, see Arts of Japan: The John C. Weber Collection, edited by Melanie Trede with Julia Meech (Berlin: Museum of East Asian Art, National Museums in Berlin, 2006), pl. 38. The left screen is also very close in composition to a pair in the Saitama Prefectural Museum of Art attributed to the workshop of Kano Mitsunobu (1565-1608) and dated to the Genna era (1615-24).