#cherry #hanzi #kanji #asianlanguages

Despite it being winter in my area a couple of local cherry trees are blooming in my area so

Copyright Julie Vaux 2017
You are welcome to share this for educational purposes
but please include a link back to my blog and a note that this diagram is copyright to me
 since sometime in the future I plan to compile these technozi into a book

A FROSTY MEDLEY

#frost #shuang  #hanzi #kanji #cursive #calligraphy #technozi

A FROSTY MEDLEY

For Inspiration Study and Reference

I've posted these images before but that was some time ago ... years probably and frost is on my mind since it certainly is not summer in my area!

something I made with #inkscape and #gimp a few years back!

A scan from a book I own 

Enlarged edited diagrams derived from that scan.

The lower part of the character is xiang and seems to have be picked as the phonetic primarily because it ends in -ang like Shuang unless perhaps whoever created the  character was looking of looking at trees when its frosty or inspecting orchards or timber for frost damage?

Guess the country of Origin

Can you guess where this was made?

One major clue is the particular shade of blue that the cobalt oxide underpainting fired to?

No its NOT Chinese or Japanese.

Hokusai Chicken print

#ukiyo-e #japaneseprint #hokusai

Un or semi colored rough proofs for japanese woodblock prints rarely survive but somehow this one did and it shows the technical skills of the carver who did the block and the genius of Hokusai.

Note how the varying line widths create tone and depth and texture and the gradients in the reds too!

I find this by accident looking for something else and will now try to find a full color version for comparision!

Oracle Bone Script

There are many books with the words "50 .... you should know" especially in reference to western art and design. I would love it if I was commissioned to pick and comment on 50 significant Chinese works of art.

So called Oracle Bone Script (the name is modern) objects are the first records of Chinese writing, the ancestors, of Bronze Drum, Bird and Cloud, Small seal, Regular, and other forms of Chinese Kanzi, and hence also of Vietnamese ChuNom, Japanese Kana and Kanji, and Korean Hanja, and the modern simplified forms.

Would you like me to compile some of my posts into such a book? 

I would pick a mixture of Calligraphy, Painting, Architecture, Prints, Ceramics, and Lacquer, and try to pick objects that say something about Chinese culture and its influence on other cultures, Asian and European.

Let me know !

Xuan Pin means ... er ...

There's a section of the Tao Te Ching that refers to the "Valley Spirit" Gu Shen and that the Valley Spirit also has another name XUAN PIN.

Now XUN PIN has been related as Dark Female Mysterious Female but also as Dark Valley or Deep Valley.

Note the characters used

Xuan dark hidden A sealed Cocoon from which life may emerge

Pin usually translated as Female Animal but some dictionaries online an dprint note that it also means valley. I think either the early scribes used the same character to write a word that sounded the same maybe in two dialects but had a different meaning or the word has changed meaning and I suspect the original meaning was either valley or cleft or er deep opening.

I couldnt find a image of bi in small seal script so drew one in Inkscape and added two even more archaic forms to the image. Note that Bi the right element in the character has changed its orientation over the centuries.

While its suppose to mean soon ladle scoop dagger etc some scholars claim it represents a person turning or moving but look at the oldest forms ! I can see that meaning deep valley so valleys have side branches or can open suddenly into a wider deeper vale.

Also appear in mind the left hand element "cow" actually refers to bovines and other grazers and browsing herd animals hence female. Though I'm thinking possibly a euphemism for an opening female mammals have which would explain the er reluctance of male scholars to discuss why a minority uses valley and the link to valley spirit of dark female or hidden valley or deep vale or ...

er hum er ... yeah ... maybe ... what do you think?