#hiroshige #japaneseprint

The year is drawing to a close and I have been using the Xmas break to research and plan blogs for next year

Coming next year The Lonely Fisherman theme along with Marici Year of the Pig and more 

DECEMBER SEMI_HIATUS

XMAS BREAK SCHEDULE

People  new TECHNOZI posts will be made over the next two weeks but at a reduced or erratic  frequency.

I have to finish and upload some Xmas specials to my Patreon

https://www.patreon.com/JVartndesign

and I'm behind due to the @#$%^&* building site across the street using some kind of equipment that interferes with wifi.
That and mid summer heat and humidity  means I can only post stuff from the laptop early morning or late evening in my time zone.
Please consider following me here or on G+ or my @JVartndesign twitter so you can get updates when I post !

Umbrellas and Ukiyoe

Here's a Ukiyo-e print featuring umbrellas We're expecting a summer storm this afternoon!

Note how most of the reds are in the foreground and the blues and ochre yellows lead the eye further into the image. There is no one central figure. Its a streetscape faraway from a Kano school sansui landscape reminding you how innovative Japanese art can be and how important prints were for preserving social and costume history before photography was introduced. 

Japanese Print Couple with a dog

The year of the Dog is coming to an end so to finish it here's an image of a young couple playing with a dog or throwing treats that look like rice balls to a dog? Whether this is a pet or a street stray I don't know. perhaps its not a couple but a brother guarding his sister while they walk to the shops or a temple? Perhaps.

Momiji again and Hoitsu

#hoitsu #japanesepainting #momiji

You might want to check my Kiitsu post and compare it to this one.

This is a painting in the pillar format

Note how Hoitsu balances the tones and colors and guides our sight through the painting using tonal and color variation. Darker tones at the bottom of the wash that forms the tree trunk then a lower branch that's orange and red paralleled above by a thicker darker branch and red leaves and more orange at the top.

No wonder the Ukiyo-e artists so quickly adapted to color printing with splendid examples of good color layout like this !

Hoitsu was not a Ukiyo-e artist and while this is a painting not a print painters from other schools could inspect and study works like this  at tea ceremonies or if they were displayed at temples or poetry parties.

Chiyo's Cicadas

#Chiyo #haiku #translation #cicadas #japanesepoetry

Taki no ne mo hosoru ya mine ni semi no koe 

sound of waterfall 
tapering off ! peak(s) location 
 voice of cicada 

the sound of water falling from or near a peak tapering off becoming less or is the waterfalls sound making the cicadas voice less?

Cicadas vary the volume of their chorus 

I don't how Japanese cicada behave 

I have this picture in my mind of Chiyo walking through a forest or trees full of cicadas and suddenly coming to a pool where water is falling noisily down the peaks and maybe sitting besides it to write this haiku after meditating or simply resting on a long walk to visit a Buddhist temple.

The sound of the waterfall 
lessening amongst the peaks 
The voice of the cicadas

amongst is too strong a translation of ni but works in English

I'm not sure of the best reading of mo here... and so though ?
hosoru should be thinning like a thread being spun but thinning doesnt work in modern English or Japanese where few people spin their own thread?

The voice of the cicadas however is just as strong !