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.