during Japan’s Heian Period (794-1192 AD). extensively on colour, describing in detail de rigueur for members of the Imperial court.

has read Murasaki Shikibu’s Heian classic, ‘The Tale of Genji’ three times in its entirety, in the original language. From 1976 until taking over his family’s dyeing business, Yoshioka was a publisher of art books, mainly titles related to traditional textile art. His publishing house is aptly named, ‘Shikosha’, or ‘purple and red.’

In 1987 Yoshioka assumed control of the family dye works that dates to the early Edo Period (1603-1867 AD). He was determined to steer the business back toward tradition: Yoshioka would only dye with vegetal dyes and natural mordants in order to create a spectrum of colours that revived the courtly colours of the ancient Nara (710-794 AD) and Heian Periods. Yoshioka says simply, ‘when you think of colour, you think of the Heian Period – they used natural dyes and produced the finest colours.’ He adds, ‘The space that the (Heian) female authors devoted to the descriptions, and the attention paid to colours on paper, clothing and flowers, leads one to the conclusion that life at court was extremely colour conscious. In a single text, ‘The Tale of Genji’ there are more than 80 different names of colours.’

The arsenal of natural dyestuffs that give colour to cloth at Yoshioka dye works reads like an entry from Sei Shonagon’s ‘The Pillow Book’: safflower, gardenia seed, gromwell root, sappenwood, clove, walnut, betel nut

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