A horse for your new year

This a famous painting called Scholars collating texts by Yan Liben#yanliben  or a student of his and its probably a copy of a copy. Now many art text books focus on the centre images of the scholars and discuss his fine brush work and portraiture.

However scholars are not the only interesting figures in this work.

Take a look at the left of the scroll and now this close up.

I love this detail of the #horse looking out at us as if enjoying the attention of the viewers and every time I see it find myself wondering if Yan Liben based his painting of sketches and if one day sketching a horse found the horse had turned its  head to look back at him. Enjoy and a Happy Asian #Newyear to everyone!

Year of the Horse

2014 is the Year of the Horse !

I'll be sharing more horse related  Asian art and tehcnozi  with you this month.

15 Horses

The year of the Horse is coming so here's a demo of what the character for Horse Radical 187 looks like in various fonts ranging from near calligraphic to super heavy bold.

Shunsen Natori Onnagata Kabuki Print

Another Shunsen natori print. 

This is an onnagata a male actor playing a female role described as a "stylish maid" tho female attendant might be a better translation since this is hardly clothing for house work.

The kimono and obi show two traditional japanese textile pattern techniques tie dyeing and ikat weaving.

An actual house or personal maid offstage would have probably wore even in a wealthy merchants or aristocrats  household  a plainer robe perhaps still ikat but less colors ?

Shunsen Natori Print

An Kabuki Actor Print by Shunsen Natori

No the character is not squinting. 

The makeup represents a scarred samurai with one eye. 

Despite or because this is a modern print the use of color is quite restrained and I rather think judging from other prints Shunsen studied early 18th century prints made when the range of colors available for woodblocks was more limited.

Cormorants painting

I'm working on a Year of the Horse series
meanwhile enjoy this painting. I was cleaning up and found what appears to be a page from an old page some one  not me torn out to use as a reference for something?

The style appears to be early to middle twentieth century Chinese a traditional watercolor in most ways  but with a few signs of western influence such as a technique for coloring that seems to blend  Chinese and western realism?

There was an artists name but its no longer legible. Enjoy!