CHERRIES YING

#cherry #cherries #sakura #hanzi #kanji #flower #tree

Its Cherry Blossom Season in #japan so todays #kanji #hanzi

Copyright Julie Vaux 2016

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QUAKE

There are two things many people are thinking about when thinking of #Japan lately ... no the debate about the Ghost in the Shell casting is not one of them for me ... I'm thinking the top two are the #SAKURA SEASON and the recent #EARTHQUAKES in #Kyushu.

Copyright Julie Vaux 2016 

An observation about the CHEN character used for the Phonetic.

Remember one of its names was Small Dragon and took a look at the seal script form if you have a reference book.

Earth Dragons who might cause tremors were regarded as lesser than celestial dragons.

This character is also an ideograph?

Japanese Embroidered Dragon

#japanese #embroidery #dragon #japanesecrafts

This image comes from an out of print Japanese Crafts Book I own.
I don't think I'm violating copyright if this post is for educational purposes?
Anyway I'm not entirely sure who owns the copyright?

The person who stitched the work or the photographer or the publishing company?

Please enjoy the image ! Yes it was cropped from a larger original!

FAHUA GARDEN STOOL and Chinese Industrial Design

#fahua #gardenstool #industrialdesign #chineseceramics

This is a special object Read Why >>

You've probably seen one of these or something very similar in any store that sells #Chinese #Ceramics. There are a lot of modern copies of this #Ming #Fahua garden stool. Hundreds. Thousands. BUT That testifies to its success as industrial design.

Once upon a time this was an innovation. Someone had the splendid idea of combining the new turquoise and indigo mid-range glazes with a shape normally used with bamboo or saw an upturned barrel or storage container being used as a stool or maybe they lived in or visited a high rain fall subtropical region and were fed up with the garden furniture  wood or bamboo turning green with mould or drying and splitting? 

Its an easy shape to create and copy on a large scale by hand or mold. 

Its a simple yet elegant contrast of colors.

There's ornament to catch the customers eyes.

Centuries later these are still being made and sold because they are good design.

They may not be porcelain famille verte or wucai Qing court vessels but they are useful surprisingly sturdy and have popular appeal

I also suspect some one was sick of garden furniture in lighter materials being overturned or damaged in storms and having to be dragged in and out of storage.

True there are some modern copies that are obviously mass produced and not the same high quality but this simple design really should be used as a textbook example in design texts, industrial or ceramic!

More Lacquer- Chinese POLYCHROME

Having shown you several Japanese lacquer works I thought it time to show you some different styles.

This may be either colored lacquer over carved wood or a combination of carved wood and carved lacquer.

It's #chineselacquer a beautiful #phoenix and #qing dynasty #kangxi reign.

This was sold recently on an auction site and I have no idea who now owes it but happily the image was still online!

Its a lovely work! The photo makes me wish I could inspect the original!

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