Murasaki Hats
Description: The color purple used to be very rarely seen because it was difficult and took time to make, for this reason it was very pricey because it needed to be extracted from shigusa (purple gromwell plant), which is very difficult to grow. It also required a lot of effort to dye using the color purple. Consequently for a long time in Japan, ordinary people were forbidden to wear purple clothes. During the Nara period, approx 1400 years ago, only high-level officials and the Imperial family could wear purple clothes. When Buddhism came to Japan, the monks who had a high-level of virtue were also allowed to wear purple. In Noh performances, purple and white are often used for the costumes of the emperor and Gods.
Description: Murasaki Shikibu quote: “So much for their looks; but their characters - that is a much more difficult matter. We all have our quirks and no one is ever all bad. Then again, it is not possible for everyone to be all things all of the time: attractive, restrained, intelligent, tasteful and trustworthy. We are all different and it is often difficult to know on which aspect to dwell.”
Description: Murasaki Shikibu quote: "Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful; but when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!" How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as such a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am.
Description: Murasaki Shikibu quote: The wood-carver can fashion whatever he will. Yet his products are but toys of the moment, to be glanced at in jest, not fashioned according to any precept or law. When times change, the carver too will change his style and make new trifles to hit the fancy of the passing day. But there is another kind of artist, who sets more soberly about his work, striving to give real beauty to the things which men actually use and to give to them the shapes which tradition has ordained. This maker of real things must not for a moment be confused with the carver of idle toys.
Description: Murasaki Shikibu quote: There is much to be said for cherry blossoms, but they seem so flighty. They are so quick to run off and leave you. And then just when your regrets are the strongest the wisteria comes into bloom, and it blooms on into the summer. There is nothing quite like it. Even the color is somehow companionable and inviting
Description: Murasaki Shikibu quote: “It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion.”
