Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/239

 their practical values in combination and in contrast, the aristocratic lady of the Heian epoch dressed herself so that she seemed to move in an atmosphere of delightful tints, tender and rich but never crude or obtrusive. Fashion, being governed by the instincts of art rather than the suggestions of fancy, was not capricious. There were few changes of shape or style. All that was necessary was to have robes of appropriate colour for each season—robes resembling the bloom of the plum and the cherry in spring; that of the azalea and the scrabra in summer; that of the bush-clover, the yellow or white chrysanthemum, the dying maple leaf and the flower of the ominameshi (Patrinia scabiosefolia) in autumn, and that of the pine spray and the withered leaf in winter. There were colours that might be worn at all times of the year, but the four seasons had their distinctive tints. In a contemporary record of a fete at the Palace of the Emperor Shirakawara in the year 1117, it is stated that forty ladies made their appearance costumed in the most novel and beautiful styles. Some wore as many as twenty-five suits, showing glimpses of purple, of crimson, of grass-green, of wild-rose yellow and of sapan-wood brown, their sleeves and skirts decorated with golden designs. Others, by subtle commingling of willow sprays and cherry blossoms and by embroidered patterns picked out with gems, represented the poem of the jewels and the flowers. Others had costumes