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 

Sosuke Japanese Cloissonne

#yearoftherooster #sosuke #japaneseart #vases #cloisonne
The Year of the Rooster isn't quite over yet. While web searching for treasures to share with you
 I found this delightful pair of vases. Enjoy! The master who created these was called Sosuke.

Its still the year of the rooster!

#okimono #japanesesculpture #bronze #rooster #hen 

It's still the Year of the Rooster so lets get back to that for a few posts though I will be doing other bird / flight / winged beings theme posts before the year of the dog starts.

Here's a lovely Japanese Bronze Okimono for you to enjoy!

One side effect of the fall of the Tokugawa regime was that craftsfolk working in metal who once produced objects catering to samurai and daimyo like sword scabbards, armour and helmets needed new markets and shifted to creating what the Japanese call okimono and we call Objects of Art or Small Sculptures such as this lovely pair.

Enjoy!!!

#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

Ninsei Vase

A break from the diversity theme and a return to Birds

A vessel crafted by a #Japanese #Potter called #Ninsei showing the influence of #bunjinga or "scholar" style Japanese painting. Technical points: this shows what you can do with white slip if you don't have a pure white stone ware or porcelain clay available. I don't know if the black was applied to the slip or is an overglaze but I'm thinking underglaze over white clay slip. I think the way the exposed clay at base enhances the the rocks and foreground of the image. I'm also thinking another influence may be been early ukiyo-e style prints with limited colors. The painting however beautifully fits the curve of the vessel.

Good potters think in terms of form and color?

Nihonga style depiction of a Dove

In keeping with our current #Dove theme a Jjapanese  #Nihonga #painting

Our next theme for the year of the bird may be peacocks or geese.

Eagles !!!

#eagle #hanzi #kanji #chinese #japanese

Copyright Julie Vaux 2017 

Japanese uses a kanji that means vulture in Chinese to mean eagle and uses this kanji for HAWK!

During the recent "upgrade" of a certain online lexicon someone snafu'd the Hakka entries so I have no idea what the tone is for the Hakka entry!

The chinese word ying and its hanzi appears in a variety of compound words to describe various avian raptor species including falcons and hawks as well as eagles.

You may also see the Cantonese jing spelt as ying in some romanisations.

There are also other words for eagle but this appears to be the main term.

Look up diao and shuang.

The next post in this birds series will be a painting!

Some time in the near future due to a discussion with a Twitter acquaintance I may post on Sinitic influence on Vietnam and why Viets and other Asians get sick of being mistaken for Chinese and vice versa.

Cicadas

#cicada #hanzi #technozi #card #unihan #kanji

This is a bump with a few small edits of an older post that has become seasonally relevant !

Continuing the #cicada theme since its summer in my hemisphere

Copyright Julie Vaux 2016  

A note on the Vietnamese. Some dictionaries list the Vietnamese NON sinitic word and not the SV SinoVietnamese "Literary"  equivalent so this is one case of Sinitic loanwords not dominating the Austroasiatic original ! Japanese haiku poets also prefer to use SEMI over SJ SinoJapnese SEN.

Ando Jubei Cloisonne

#AndoJubei #cloisonne #shippo #japanese

Here is an excellent example both of #Cloisonne and how the Japanese took a familiar theme and translate it into differing materials. You may see similar compositions in and on paintings prints lacquer and ceramics but how would they differ?

Cloisonne versus Ceramics 

If this was a ceramics box it would be probably be slipcast or form molded porcelain and while you could get that gray with a clear glaze over a stain it might have a bluer tint or some crackling.

Modern industrial processes of spraying underglazes and glazes and computer controlled kilns would allow for multiple copies.

Cloisonne verses Lacquer 

You simply couldn't get that shade of gray with lacquer. Maybe a high quality plastic trying to imitate lacquer but not TRUE lacquer.

Cloisonne and Painting or Prints

The gray would be ink and more details and clouds. The reflection would be more difficult to create since its white on gray.

This little box really demonstrated why works from the Ando Jubei studio and company are collectible. When you have a master who knows how mediums influence each other and understands his materials and doesnt just copy an image in a different material but uses that material to make changes ...craft becomes art.

A final thing to consider is the great restraint shown here. If you google cloisonne you'll get dozens of images of vases and other items adorned with elaborate patterns of flowers or interlocking patterns but this masterpiece shows an understanding of enameling that is genius level! Limited use of wire outlines. A perfectly fired gray background with no flaws and highlight of pure white for contrast. 

Oh and the wonderful balance of the color of the branches to the interior of the box!

Two Purple adjectives

There are two other lesser known adjectives for purple in Chinese but I couldnt do a complete set so if any one knows the missing words?

Lacquer as a Verb

LACQUER AS A VERB

#hanzi #kanji #nurimono #lacquer #japanese #chinese

Copyright Julie Vaux 2016

 

TWO CATS

#twocats #chinese #cats #hanzi #japanese #asianlanguage

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015 

Note the elements of this character: the cat is a ferocious small predator that comes near rice fields or the dog/ animal + rice field 

I wonder if cats once hunted snakes and eels and other food in rice paddies?

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REI is Clever and Spooky

More info about the REI # kanji Ling in #chinese

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015  

I wish someone would use the Paypal tip jar. I'm in sydney but I'ld rather be in Kyoto viewing the autumn colors in the northern hills, something I have not seen in person. Yeah it would take a hug amount of tips to pay just the air fares but ... one can dream ...

Next time maybe some nihonga-e for a change ...

REIKO Spirit Fox or Clever Girl?

#smstirling #Changeverse #kanji

In The Golden Princess an #alternatehistory #Sf novel by S. M. Stirling there's a character whose name is an excellent example of how one character can have different meanings!

I promised my fellow Changeverse fans a post explaining How Reiko could perceive her name as meaning Ghost Fox but Orlaith heard it as Clever/ beautiful lady/girl.

Now there are several combinations of kana and kanji that could write the sounds REI + KO.

Normally in modern Japanese in a girls name KO is the tzu character meaning child though there seems to be a shift away from this practice with some adult women shortening their names to one character.

Lets see the characters I think REIKO would use to write her name on a Personal seal used for private correspondence or poetry.

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015 

In chinese this would be Ling Hu or Leng wu in Cantonese ?

The REi character has several meanings quick clever beautiful intelligent supernatural spirit ghost and its KUN readings is TAMA which means jewel and spirit so Reiko's childhood name could have been Tamako and then changed to Reiko as an adult? Her actual REIGN name will probably be something different.

Here's the traditional form next to the modern form on the right.

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015  

I'll show you the character for Fox with more info in a subsequent post soon!

Fellow Stirling fans please help me out but not just sharing this post but also referring people to my Red Bubble site? Thanks?

WHITE BAI

#hanzi #kanji #asianlanguages

White is on my mind due to the recent and rare snowstorms in Australia.
Hence the color gradient on the outline of bai.

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015

Did you know white as shiro or shira is the most frequently used adjective in the famous 100 poets Japanese Anthology of Heian waka usually as a reference to snow or frost?

If anyone knows words for white in other Asian languages which I havnt listed here feel free to add them in the comments.

 

Cui Green

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015 

Two Umbrellas

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Both forms of the Hanzi / Kanji for Umbrella
This word also means sunshade and parachute and canopy sometimes.
An rain umbrella has the sign for rain added.

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Xiang Again

#Xiagn #hanzi #perfume 

Google stats says these two were amongst my most popular posts during 2014

#copyright #julievaux  

Both images copyright Julie Vaux 2015 

HORSE MA Radical

Copyright Julie Vaux 2014  

A note what I'm declaring copyirhgt on is the technozi format, how the data is arranged as displayed as a visual image, in case I ever collate these into a book.

If you would like to see the various technozi as an e-book or print let me know? Especially if you're a publisher so I can get someone to do the formatting!

If I did these as an ebook I'ld probably embed the svgs and pngs into a pdf landscape format or if I used portrait mode leave lots of blank space in the print edition for you to add notes. So would anyone like to see a book?

RIVER CHUAN Copyright Julie Vaux

Copyright Julie Vaux 2014

Both images copyright ot Julie Vaux 2014