Christmas Greetings

Due to a hand injury I am way behind on everything but ... 

 

aaargh accident

I had posts 90% finished n then this ! 

Another chiru momiji Haiku

 Another Chiru Momiji Haiku 

by SHIKO Kagami

#haiku #shiko #chirumomiji #translation 

Urayamashii

utsukushuu natte

chiru momiji 

Enviable note - mashii  its the adjective not the verb urayamu 

beauty beautiful this form equals modern utsukushii 

natte is becomes apparently there are texts that record this line as ending with narite instead

the general idea though is beauty changing 

chiru momiji is the scattering and falling of autumn leaves maples or others

Enviable the beautiful becoming falling leaves 

This sort of haiku shows why haiku translations and waka too always need notes on the original and at least the romaji of the original !

Haiku - Watch those Suffixes

HAIKU _ WATCH THOSE SUFFIXES 

 #Haiku #japanese #translations #suffixes #Basho 

I was looking for seasonal haiku for November. Momiji was a kigo.

This haiku by Basho that takes a common phrase and gives it a new resonance.

Tootogaru 

Namida ya somete

Chiru momiji 

literally revering as a feeling not a honorific note that garu suffix

tear(s) emphasis marker color stain dyeing somete from someru 

scattering falling maple and other red autumn leaves late in the season 

Seems simple right yet two other translations I saw of this haiku ignore tootogaru being a verb and the translators seem to have thought he was revering to the Buddhist priest he was visiting.

Tootogaru is a verb!

Referring to an emotion shared about something or some action.

Yes there may be a pun on the stem being an honorific used especially in its Sino-Japanese as part of titles. 

But note Basho has used the KUN reading and added a suffix that turns verbs and adjectives into verbs!

So how to turn the first line being one verb into a phrase in English that also expresses the feeling?

With reverence ? Revering? Respect? Add we view ?

And whose tears are coloring the fallen leaves ?

See how those two first lines change a standard phrase used with other haiku and waka !

 Our reverent tears are coloring the falling leaves isn't a poem in English but expresses the meaning and context and gets closer but not close enough to the Japanese meaning? Or not ? 

One suffix -garu changes the whole haiku! 

Haiku for November

Not wisteria 

Still a beautiful purple 

The jacarandas

No momiji or wisteria in Sydney in November but we do have the jacarandas 

STUDY - XUE

 BEST wishes and blessings for those about to do HSC or other exams !

Inktober - more asian classics !

 #inktober 

20th century "Expressionism" Ink Scroll

A notable tendency from the late 19th century onwards and throughout the 20th century is an looser bolder "wet" style of ink and brush. I suspect the availability of photographic illustrations for text books has encouraged this along with collections going on tour through major cities along with more people being able to buy exported heavier papers? 

Zi Yong's 1000 Character Classic

 There were originally said to be 800 versions of copies of the 1000 character Classic created by Zi Yong to provide student monks with calligraphy examples. These were distributed across Eastern Zhejiang and surviving copies exist in various collections!

The left hand columns are an older form of caoshu with the kaishu on the right with all the characters showing strokes more similar to xingshu running script. Beautiful and educational! 

Zi Yong was originally a court painter but retired to become a Zen Monk and than an abbot. 

Thanks to the modern Internet those of us who are not Zen monks can also enjoy this. Many thanks to whoever digitized and uploaded this copy for others to study and enjoy!

Asian Inktober _ Lets look at some Classics ! Su Shi

 For October lets look at some Classics ! Tree and Rock by Su Shi 

Yes #SuShi also known as #SuDongPo

He was one of those Famous Chinese Poets who had the "Trifecta" of skills writing poems doing calligraphy and painting too! This is one to study! Fortunately later collectors refrained themselves to adding their seals at  the edges of the image ! 

Notice how theres actually only a few strokes due to the use of dry brush and the dense small solid blacks for detail emphasizing  the texture of the rock and the shoots. 

Minimal yet maximal! 

schedule change emergency

Followers and visitors due to a schedule change at work I have to work today. Also the commencement date of a new casual role has been moved forward. There will be a weekly post but not today ! Also this blog may be going on an extended hiatus ! 

Ink Masters

Inktober is here again 

Let us consider the East Asian masters of Ink on Silk and Paper.

Yes I know I do this every year but 

INKTOBER !!!

If you don't have access to good books with high quality reproductions visit Wikipedia and zoom in and look at the fine details of linework and gradients ! 

INK and Calligraphy n Inktober

Inktober is here again ! 

So this months themes will be the beauty of ink in painting and calligraphy. 

My hopefully not too blurry photo is a page from a book showing xing shu calligraphy by Cai Xiang 

The book is Zhou Kexi  The Art of Chinese Calligraphy 2009 

GOOSE AND MOON

#Goose #moon #inro #japaneselacquer

 With Covid limiting international travel even those of us with money (ha not me!) can only dream of an autumn moon viewing or seeing geese crossing the skies. Where I live you might just seen some fruit bats or cockatoos flying through last of the daylight but geese across the moon ? NO.

So enjoy this Inro instead. Perhaps the first owner dreamed of flying free like the geese?

CHINESE SIBILANTS

 #sibilants #sinitic #ipa 

These are the most common

IPA SYMBOLS for SIBILANTS

in Sinitic languages

s ʂ ɕ

s sh x

as in sī shī xī or sū shū xū

sh – ʂ voiceless retroflex fricative

x - ɕ voiceless alveolopalatal fricative

DRAGONS and Cliches

 

WHAT ? I put the word cliche in the same sentence as dragon?

There are certain layouts and rendering styles that appear over and over again in East Asian painting when dragons are depicted. 

This example is an 18th century Japanese painting and when an excellent skilled work there are certain aspects only obvious if you have seen a lot of Japanese art especially art of the KANO school.

First of all there's the use of just one tint in the background with Mt Fuji being depicted as just an outline against a gray sky. This motif is used in dozens of other paintings and prints.

Then there's the dark clouds. The painter has perhaps tried a bit too hard to show his control over the flow of ink by using the clouds to emphasize the dragon and of course the beloved S curve composition though to be fair its beautiful skilled rendering and suggests the dragon is creating rain clouds so it moves across the sky. 

The dragon however is one that could have appeared in dozens of other works, Chinese or Japanese, and possibly also has a message that the artist had the opportunity and privilege and connections to travel around the country studying various private collections artists not of the Kano or affiliated schools would have had access to. 

Its a good painting but its very much the equivalent of say 19th Academy art in Europe. 

The artist has obviously studied the approved models for dragons. 

Now to test you. 

What do you think is the signifiance of the dragon only having THREE toes ?

 . 

HOITSU - FLOWERS

 HOITSU FLOWERS 

#hoitsu #flowers 

Its nearly Spring where I live so some flower painting! Enjoy!

THE LOTUS POND HASUI

This pond is near a Benten Shrine.  

#lotuspond #japaneseprint #hasui 

This is a masterwork in how to have one dominant tone or color and use it to make the details in other colors stand out. There's a blueish gray green or 3 print plates of blue gray gray and mid green with the colors blending to create a dominant middle tone which emphasizes the bridge the flowers and the kimonos.

STUDY HOW JAKUCHU DEPICTS BIRDS

 #Itojakuchu #birds #rooster #painting 

I have posted this one before and I'm reposting it as an example of bird painting for the benefit if they will pay attention of the sort of anime / manga artist who apparently thinks wings and feathers are made of cardboard and anime means they don't have to study anatomy or other artists.

Also it is nearly Spring and there are flowers in this painting!

I certainly don't want to you all to be as fascinated or possibly obsessed with birds as Jakuchu was but whatever your art style he is a master you should study whether you are doing anime/ manga or  scientific illustration or whatever. Linework color layout composition this is a masterpiece. Study it! 

OGATA GEKKO PRINT

 Ogata Gekko - The Grass Cutting Blade 

#ogatagekko #japaneseprint #

 

This is an illustration of a famous scene from Japanese legends. NO not a Kabuki play. Note that the artist has depicted the character in pre HEIAN costume with loose sleeves pants bound at the calf and a STRAIGHT not curved katana! Also the wearing of jewellery made of stone beads and the use of a belt with the swords sheath tied to the belt.

Note also the use of gray as a dominant color both complementing and contrasting the reds pinks and other tints hues and tones. Its almost painterly but still a print respecting the artists sketches and color notes and skilfully rendering them. 

Remember this print was made by having several super imposed woodblock.

One for the black lines one for the grays another for each other color.

If using digital art we might use gradients plus vector objects and layers with varying degrees of opacity. 

Consider how you might create a similar image using a marker pen or brush or a tablet and a digital pen?

Hiroshige - HIRASAN

 HIROSHIGE - HIRASAN 

HIRASAN is a range of mountains north east of the Kyoto basin now known for a scenic drive and ski fields. Snow on these peaks is one of the Eight Views of OMI?

Once again Hiroshige shows his mastery of color and tone. There are only two colors used black and blue but every raised surface on the block that impressed ink onto the paper renders shadow and shape and the colorist has carefully tinted the block to reflect the tones of a whatever watercolor sketch Hiroshige sent them.

I have no idea what village that is in the foreground probably judging from the angle somewhere north of Otsu that is now a suburb of that city.

And theres the contrast creating depth between the line work in the foreground of trees houses people and the nearest slopes and raising up so high just a shape with no outline just whiteness raising against a gray wintery sky.

HIROSHIGE 

truly one of the greats!

Writing English with Chinese characters?

Okay for some reason this is massively trending over on Quora along with related questions on using Chinese characters to write a variety of other languages.

Its an interesting question.

One could write rain will come with characters like yu lai 

BUT 

What if you want to write :

It should begin to rain soon.

Conditionals cause problems.

Japanese solved this by using kana to render verb suffixes.

Modern Chinese uses adverbs.

You could do this using hanzi but you would have to know both English and Chinese very well?

And what about imbedded clauses? 

 I could not meet you because (of) (the) heavy rain (which was) causing flooding (that was) blocking (the) road.

You could make this one line of writing using hanzi but you might need at least 2 or 3 extra characters to express could and other conditions even if you omitted the words I placed in brackets.

Then theres the definite article THE ! There's just no hanzi parallel unless you change every usage of THE to this or that ? 

How also does one express the difference between a base or infinite verb form and -ed  or -ing whether they are expressing aspect or tense? 

As an exercise to improve translation skills and make students think about thee different grammar of both laguages it could be useful but it completely omits euphony rhythm emotional tone and other aspects.

Could you use hanzi to write English or Vietnamese or Arabic or Japanese or Uighur. 

It could be done but it generally requires extra characters or special signs to be efficient or effectively. Look at Japanese kana. Oh wait that requires far longer to learn? 

Alphabetic systems have undeniable advantages ! 

Mountains - Tateyama

#mountains #tateyama #Hiroshige #japaneseprint

Having shown you a Chinese #shansui #landscape last time this time one of Hiroshige's lesser known print. There is some exaggeration or perhaps erosion since the late 18th century? but yes Tateyama is not so much one mountain as several peaks grouped together. The mist and fog in the foreground are rising from a lake and the local climate and geography is such that there are lush forests raising from flat bottomed valleys almost subtropical yet small glaciers and snow and alpine habitats around the peaks! And the famous snow corridor! 

GUAN TONG _ MOUNTAIN

 I"m thinking about mountains and one of the mostfamous paintingsof a mountain is this one by GUAN TONG whichI haveposted about before but its such an amazing work

There's just so much in this scroll painting on silk. The clouds and mist the peaks and ridges the waterfall flowing down from the heights the trees in the bottom foreground the tonal gradient the touches of yellow on the leaves marking the season as Autumn.

Enjoy contemplating it. 

KASAGI TWO

 KASAGI TWO

Having you shown you the poem and a translation this time ... here's a poem "card" I made>

I may post this and a larger poster size version on Reb Bubble Deviantart or Patreon ... havnt decided where ...

The illustration was done using Inkscape plus some brush texture added in Gimp.

A note from next week due to a schedule change and lockdown I may only be able to post once a week instead of about every 4- 5 days as my volunteer hours may change if or when we go back to partial lockdown in Sydney and my PAID work hours ... well lets say it would be great if I had a lot more followers and hence some Adsense or sales income ?  

Kasagi Sequence One

 #kasagi #waka #japanesepoetry #fujiwarashunzei #shunzei #samidare #kumogakuretsutsu 

KASAGI SEQUENCE 

I will be posting about this poem here and some illustrations inspired by it over on my Patreon.

This is one of those poems that seem quite simple until you analyse and translate it and realise the skill involved.

Starts off quite simply 

samidare      so early summer rain in May but then 

minakami masaru the rain is overwhelming everything ?

izumigawa spring river ?  origin river ? er no 

it took me 2 weeks of research to find out that Izumigawa is an old name for what is now known as the Kizugawa river south of Kyoto 

and the next line seems simple kasaki yama  okay Mount Kasagi in modern Japanese but enter it as a google search term and you may get Kasagiyama near Ena in Gifu! 

so is it flooding or just heavy rain or mist or fog rising from the river 

Kasagiyama is a place you go to for cherry blossom viewing and pilgrimages to an old Shingon buddhist temple and sightseeing various boulders or climbing on them.

Perhaps Shunzei was there for a buddhist retreat for look how he ends the poem 

kumogakuretsutsu kumo + gakure +tsutsu something like continually disappearing ?

so the mist or rain is fluctuating or is it a double reference implying he's there in a hermitage a hidden place maybe looking down upon the river valley?

Elegantly simple yet every reading rises another question ?

Or perhaps I just need to study a lot more waka poetry? 

A Summer rain medley.

 japaneseprints #ukiyo-e #prints #summer rain #rain 

A Summer Rain Medley

Here are some prints contrasting various ways of depicting summer rain.

Shigenobu Night Rain at Akasaka 

Hiroshige Summer Rain Suhara 

Kiyonaga Storm Scene

MENG HAO Ren's Spring Morning POEM

 #menhaoren #chinese poetry #spring morning

(If you are not seeing chinese characters you need to check why your browser and computers font and language settings are not reading the unicode I entered!)

MENG HAO RAN POEM

SPRING MORNING

Mèng Hào Rán - Chún Xiaŏ

Chún Mián Bù Jué Xiaŏ

春 眠 不 覺 暁

spring sleep not sense dawn

Chù chù Wén Tí Niaŏ

處 處 聞 啼 鳥

everywhere hear crying bird

Yè Laì Fēng Yŭ Shēng

夜 來 風 雨 聲

night came wind rain sound

Huā Luò Zhī Duō Shaŏ

花 落 知 多 少

flower fall know how many ?

This is not a full translation or notes 

( you can see a different but similar set notes over on my metousia patreon  and also get a pdf for your one usage)

I keep thinking of something different to write everytime I review my notes )

because I want you to think about the main meanings not compare this to the many other translation and consider what is possibly the most import word in the poem - the verb TI in the second line.

The birds are not singing or flying they are CRYING 

The next line wind rain sound invokes a storm 

which tells us why the birds are crying and maybe why the poet was slow to awake and rise 

and he finishes with a question to himself and us

how many flowers fell last night?

not how pretty spring plum is but how many flowers fall and unspoken what else was damaged if the birds are so upset he describes them as crying ?! 

That simple question makes this a work of genius 

You are welcome to suggest or recommend different translations !

Hydrangeas in Lacquer

HYDRANGEAS IN LACQUER

#hydrangeas #lacquer #japaneselacquer 

I was looking for images of hydrangeas that was painted or printed and found this gorgeous Japanese box to share.

 

HYDRANGEAS PAINTING

HYDRANGEAS 

are a beloved summer flower in Japan 

#hydrangeas #summer #rimpa #painting 

This is probably a student of Korin? 

 

SUMMER RAIN - HIROSHIGE

 

SUMMER RAIN AT SUHARA BY HIROSHIGE 

#suhara #hiroshige #japaneseprint #rain

There are many reasons to admire and enjoy Hiroshige's works. 

Firstly in this work the skilful use of ink gradients in the coloring. Tones of blue and gray mingling or spreading in parallel bands to create and depth.

Secondly his ability to suggest a vast background even with very little detail. The thin dark ban across the top suggests the rainstorm  is going to be a heavy prolonged one. The dark tones of the trees reinforce this.

Thirdly we have the human details the travellers running for shelter on a tiny entry way and the rider and his horse plodding along bent over like the the person walking behind them hindered by the very weight of the rain.

Hiroshige has taken a ordinary summer moment and transformed it to its essentials to a few lines and colors and made yet another masterpiece.

birthday break 2021

Please scroll down and enjoy older posts while I rest and prep for june posts

The Four Seasons

 I'm just bumping and reposting an older work in the hope someone will comment on it? 

#kanji #hanzi #technozi #typography #inkscape

Do you think the colors gradients filters and textures I added reflect the character of the four seasons?

Buson - Poem Card -The sea at Spring

 #Harunoumi #Buson #haiku 

This was posted to my #patreon  JVartndesign in 2019 but no one claimed it as an reward. It will still be available as  apost card or download when I decide to move it to my Red Bubble or DeviantArt or both. My rule is anything thats be up for longer than a six months or a year gets deleted since I figure no one is going to scroll down that far!

Its a haiku by Buson Note that for the repeated verb notari the tari part is a suffix !

Hokusai - summer flowers

HOKUSAI SUMMER FLOWERS 

#hokusai #summer #flowers Enjoy  

Evening Bells BUT at Kanazawa

#evningbells #japaneseprints #ukiyo-e #kanazawa  

Evening Bells is a popular theme in Japanese art especially landscape prints due to the well known EIGHT VIEWS THEME. It was so popular that ukiyo-e print artists did series of views from other areas that were not Edo or Lake Biwa.

The temple and bells are implied rather than depicted with the artist invoking an evening view of boats and a village near or perhaps the outskirts of Kanazawa and temples suggested by roofs just showing as mists form on the hillsides above.

Notice how few colors and tones there are blue and a gradient thereof, a black gray gradient,  two greens, and some browns. 

SEITEI _ Brushes and paper

 SEITEI _ Brushes and paper 

A lovely Print showing us traditional writing brushes and bowls f ink and black and red being used on paper to create fans and we can see three different types of brushes one with ultralong hairs for fine detail another middle size one and a large third one ! 

Tomoe Gozen again - GEKKO Print

 Found another great print of Tomoe Gozen the famous woman warrior to share !

#Tomoegozen #womanwarrior #japaneseprint

This one is from a series by GEKKO 

CANGJIE and APRIL 20

 #Cangjie #keyboard 

April 20 is Chinese language Day and one of the people remembered on that day is CANG JIE himself.

Yes the Cangjie keyboard input method is named after a person the mythical creator of Oracle Bone script. 

Unlike Insert Special Characters or Unihan for Cangjie you have a direct keyboard link if you have your computer set up to do Cangjie input ! personally I prefer Unicode but I may trying to finally learn how to use Cangjie but Im so used to Unihan it will take a while.

Here's another example of Cangjie

If you are some one who thinks about the components of Chinese characters this system may work better for you but you still have to learn some code to input it just not Unihan which works on the symbol being assigned a number combination!

I'm not going to type more about Cangjie cos Wikipedia has an excellent article on him which I feel no need to comment on apart from suggesting you do read it.

For Chinese language day please consider sharing one of my prior posts on this blog ?

Qing Dynasty Armour

 #qing #dynasty #armor 

QING DYNASTY ARMOR

For contrast to my prior post here's a reconstruction using antique armour on models of what and how #Qing Dynasty Armour looked like. Our high ranking aristocrat a general or prince has quilted over robes and is probably wearing metal lates or a coat of scales under the robes. 

Whoever put this together remembered to insert plumes into the top of the helmet probably having consulted paintings showing military processions or campaigns.

TOMOE GOZEN on Horseback

 #tomoegozen #japaneseprint #ukiyo-e 

TOMOE GOZEN

Tomoe Gozen was an actual historical character a woman warrior though the clothers she wears here look more like a Kabuki costume than anything wore in or out of armor by a Heian warrior aristocrat?

However the detail is gorgeous and costume errors beside the details of the swirling horse tail and the swirling ponytail of hair are quite striking plus the stance of the horse tho that costume ...?

Given how rarely women rode horses in public in any era of Japanese history is there a story behind this image. Had he actually seen a woman on horseback or not ? 

Rain at Kanazawa by Hiroshige

 #hiroshige #kanazawa #japaneseprint 

Continuing our Rain Theme here's a print by Hiroshige 

Kanazawa Rain 

Note how the rain obscured mountains or trees in the distance are balanced by the hut roofs and I think stacks of hay from rice or smaller huts in the middle right and foreground.

Note also the use of diagonals.

A "masterclass" in how to use greys and pale tints without an image becoming dreary

Harunobu - Young Woman in the Rain

 #harunobu Woman in the rain #Japanese #print #ukiyo-e

How splendidly Harunobu depicts rain and wind while having also those details of the effects of weather on humans: the geta that has slipped off her foot, the washing and her own kimono blowing in the wind, and also we have the rain slanting down from the clouds above, and the colors of the obi emphasing and complementing the slant of the rain! 

Shinsai Cherries and Rain Print

 #Shinsai #cherryblossom #rain #surimono #japaneseprint

SHINSAI early 19th century 

Its still raining in #sydney !!! sooo ...

The cherry blossoms and rainfall is rendered in a very formal stylized manner but this contrasts with the texture of the tree trunk and the gray middle tones of the rain 

Note the white streak contrasting with the darker gray lines for the rain something easier to do with wood carving and careful block inking than ink on paper with a brush.

Kiyonaga Storm

 #kiyonaga #storm #japaneseprint 

Stormy weather is the forecast for Sydney this week hence my choice of a Kiyonaga work.

This shrine in Tokyo's suburbs was surrounded by open fields in Kiyonagas time and a popular place for short summer excursions from Edo 

Kuniyoshi parodying a famous peom

#kuniyoshi #parody #humor  #japaneseprint #ukiyoe #heian #waka

Kuniyoshi created a set of prints illustrating the famous Ogura Hyakunin Isshu anthology One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets published in 1842 .

Why do I type the word parodying?

Note the figures in the middle right of the print.

A Heian aristocrat and attendants in court robes.

Whereas in the foreground we see the lower classes franticly trying to catch umbrellas blowing away in the wind.

For those who do not read Japanese or the forms used on the print the reference is to a famous poem a Heian era waka by Fun'ya (sometimes written Bunya)  no Yasuhide no. 22 in the anthology. 

Fuku kara ni  Aki no kusa ki no Shiobrureba Mube yama kaze wo Arashi iuramu 

the final verb is iuran in modern japanese.

The poem refers to how the two kanji mountain and wind combine into a characters used to describe gale force winds blowing off the mountains blowing grass and leaves and other things but instead of having leaves we see things made of wood the ki of the poem.

Kuniyoshi's picture both gently mocks the poem and yet also complements it ?

 

Subvert the Sage Three

 Don't forget to check my JVartndesign Patreon for more Subvert the Sage art you can download !

Subvert the Sage TWO

 IN honour of wise women Taoist priestesses, scholars, poetesses, nuns, and more.

MONDAY IS IWD

Do not forget Monday is 

INTERNATIONAL 

WOMANS DAY 

 

Subvert the Sage !!!

 Chinese has a character and word RU meaning Confucian scholar or sage.

It seems to me terribly unfair it is no word or character for a learned wise female scholar!

SO I did some cut and paste with nu and the xu part of ru 

creating this 

This of course is not an "Official" character but who knows if enough people start using it ...

Since its International Womans Day this month I'll be doing more new versions on this to share on my Patreon and DeviantArt

Watch for updates !

Plum Blossoms

 #ume #surimono #gakutei #japaneseprint

Its Plum Blossom Viewing season in many parts of Northern Asia especially Japan hence my choice of this #surimono print showing a cake box and plum blossom 

I hope all my readers are or have had a wonderful Lunar New year Feast ! 

Han Huang - Oxen

 Continuing the #yearoftheox theme here's a #Chinese #scroll #painting by #HanHuang

though these are #Buffalo #oxen or #bulls or maybe #cows anyway #bovines and #asian ! 

Happy Lunar New Year Everyone !