Pipa, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), late 15th–early 16th century
China Wood, ivory, bone, silk

The pear-shaped lute slowly migrated from Central Asia into China during the Han and Sui dynasties (1st–7th century). It eventually became the pipa; the term describes the original playing motion of the plectrum held in the performer’s right hand: p’i, “to play forward” (toward the left), and p’a, “to play backward” (toward the right). Until the mid-tenth century, the pipa was held horizontally (guitar style), and its twisted silk strings were plucked with a large triangular plectrum. Toward the end of the Tang dynasty, musicians began using their fingernails to execute the exuberant and programmatic repertory that was gaining popularity and that became the national style. To facilitate the use of the fingers, the instrument began to be held in a more upright position. In addition to its use in the opera and in storytelling ensembles, the pipa has a solo repertory of highly programmatic, virtuosic music.

The spectacular back and sides of this unique Ming-dynasty instrument feature more than 110 hexagonal ivory plaques, with thinner bone plaques on the neck. Each plaque is carved with Daoist, Confucian, or Buddhist figures and symbols signifying prosperity, happiness, and good luck. These include images of various gods and immortals, such as Shou Lao, the Daoist god of longevity, who is shown with a more prominent forehead on the single plaque at the very top. When the instrument is played, this expert workmanship remains unseen by the listener, as the back faces the player. The front is relatively plain but shows signs of use. The ivory string holder bears a scene featuring four figures and a bridge; an archaic cursive inscription; and, at the lip, a bat motif with leafy tendrils. Above the lower frets, two small insets depict a spider and a bird, and just before the rounded upper frets, a trapezoidal plaque portrays two men, one with a fish. The finial repeats the bat (good luck) motif.

Via The Met

Yunluo (“cloud gong”), Qing dynasty (1644–1911), 19th century
China Bronze

The yunluo consists of ten tuned bronze gongs of varying thicknesses, which provide different pitches when struck with a small mallet. First cited in the early fourteenth century, this instrument was originally used at court and in Confucian ceremonies, but by the eighteenth century, it was also found at private rituals such as weddings and funerals. By the mid-twentieth century, it had been incorporated into large orchestras and was enlarged to twenty-four or more gongs struck with two mallets.

Via The Met

Gathering of Government-Officials, ca. 1551 [Close-up]
Korea. Hanging scroll; ink and light color on silk.

Pictorial records of what may loosely be termed literary gatherings developed into a unique and vibrant genre within early Joseon paintings. These festive social occasions brought together men in office at various stages in their careers (and sometimes those in retirement), who were of the same age, or had passed the state entrance examination in the same year, or worked in the same government bureau.

In this scroll, the title of the painting and the list of participants in the event, which would normally have framed the painting at top and bottom, have been disposed of altogether, replaced at the top by a verbal description of the gathering. Moreover, the landscape and figures are equally prominent, though the central placement of the rocky mountains and winding stream endows nature with the greater importance. At the same time, the scholars and their attendants, under tall pine trees in the bottom right corner, are rendered meticulously and clearly. This painting, especially its landscape elements, presents a remarkably accurate yet creative rendering of the An Gyeon style, including an indirect reference to the Northern Song painter Guo Xi. This is the work of a highly sophisticated court painter who has successfully reinvigorated the enduring pictorial paradigms of the past—distant and immediate, foreign and native—in a distinctive and eloquent style.

Jeong Saryong, a government official and famous literatus, poet, and calligrapher, wrote the poetic inscription in 1551, identifying the event as a commemorative reunion of sixty-year-old men who entered the government around the same time. It offers a vivid description of the camaraderie of the friends and colleagues depicted in the painting, recounting a gathering to drink and recite poetry during a break in their jobs. An English translation of the poem is as follows:

Born in the same year we stood shoulder to shoulder.
Passed the civil or military examination at more or less the same time.
Time passes, and now we are facing seventy years of age.
Dressed in elegant clothing and hats, wise men meet.
We emulate the Literary Gathering of Luoyang,
And the painting shows respect for the elders, following Xiang San.
We pause in our busy schedules and recite poetry over wine
Then hasten back to the offices to labor day and night.
Our gathering is humble and frugal, modeled after Jinsolhoe.
Whoever said loftiness is easily followed?
Lacking poetry for this great event, I raise my glass.
Lacking talent, my thoughts turn blank.
Written in the latter half of the twelfth month of 1551.

Learning Asian History Through Avatar: The Last Airbender [Chinese Calligraphy Edition]

[Image: A poster of The Ember Island Players “The Boy in the Iceberg” propaganda play. The text reads in Chinese Calligraphy -   冰山上的男孩. 土國著名劇作家浦安添新作搜集全球有関降世神通資料由南極冰山至土國首都．資料来自牧民歌手海盜戰犯和菜販． 由餘烬島演員主演. In english this translates to - “The Boy in the Iceberg: The famous Earth Kingdom playwright Pu-On Tim’s new work has collected information about the Avatar from around the globe, from the icebergs of the South Pole to the Earth Kingdom capital. Information came from nomad singers, pirates, prisoners of war and a knowledgeable merchant of cabbage. Starring the Ember Island Players.” ]

I’ve been asked to recommend places for research on Chinese Calligraphy, but I found myself wanting to combine this with another A:TLA post and a brief overview of what Chinese Calligraphy is. Avatar: The Last Airbender makes a perfect example of Chinese Calligraphy for one major reason - every line of text in the series is written in either Classical or Ancient Chinese calligraphy by cultural consultant Dr. Siu-Leung Lee who is an expert in a variety of styles.

So about Chinese Calligraphy? What’s the deal?

Chinese Calligraphy (the artistic creation of Chinese characters) dates back to Ancient China (BCE) and it is still used, practiced, and created today. It covers a long period of time, and is a huge formative influence even beyond China, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

Calligraphy serves as both a discipline, and an artform, and has several rules that govern its practice. Generally speaking, characters must be: written correctly (with the right stroke order), written legibly for those who are familiar with the style being used, they must be concise, they must match the context they are serving in, and they must be ‘aesthetically pleasing’.

The tools of the trade…

The ink brush, ink, paper, and inkstone are essential implements of East Asian calligraphy: they are known together as the Four Treasures of the Study (T: 文房四寶 / S: 文房四宝) in China, and as the Four Friends of the Study (HG: 문방사우 / HJ: 文房四友) in Korea. In addition to these four tools, desk pads and paperweights are also used by calligraphers.

Early Chinese Calligraphy

The earliest known examples of Chinese writing are inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells dating from the 13th century B.C. during the Shang dynasty. These inscriptions were the records of divinations made by heating the bones or shells over a fire until cracks appeared on them. Predictions were read form the pattern of the cracks and recorded directly on the bone or shell. The figure below shows an oracle carved on the plastron of a tortoise. Note that the characters are composed of fairly straight lines with sharp endings.

The Great Seal Style
This term covers a broad range of styles which came into use during the Chou dynasty (1122-221 B.C.). Compared to the Oracle Style, these characters are more rounded at the corners and show a mixture of thick and thin strokes. Many of the surviving examples of this style, such as the one below, come from inscriptions that were cast on bronze vessels. At the bottom of the first column is the pictograph (picture-word) for “house.” The first word in the second column is also a pictograph. It shows “carriage” from a bird’s eye view — a compartment with two wheels on either side, joined by an axle.

The seal script (often called “small seal” script) is the formal script of the Qín system of writing, which evolved during the Eastern Zhōu dynasty in the state of Qín and was imposed as the standard in areas Qín gradually conquered. Although some modern calligraphers practice the most ancient oracle bone script as well as various other scripts older than seal script found on Zhōu dynasty bronze inscriptions, seal script is the oldest style that continues to be widely practiced.

Then came later styles -

This image compares Traditional and Clerical styles, with the Clerical style being the right hand side.

The clerical script (often simply termed lìshū; and sometimes called “official”, “draft”, or “scribal” script) is popularly thought to have developed in the Hàn dynasty and to have come directly from seal script, but recent archaeological discoveries and scholarship indicate that it instead developed from a roughly executed and rectilinear popular or ‘vulgar’ variant of the seal script as well as from seal script itself, resulting first in a ‘proto-clerical’ version in the Warring States period to Qín Dynasty ^[1], which then developed into clerical script in the early Western Hàn dynasty, and matured stylistically thereafter.

Clerical script characters are often “flat” in appearance, being wider than the preceding seal script and the modern standard script, both of which tend to be taller than they are wide; some versions of clerical are square, and others are wider. Compared with the preceding seal script, forms are strikingly rectilinear; however, some curvature and some seal script influence often remains. Seal script tended towards uniformity of stroke width, but clerical script gave the brush freer rein, returning to the variations in width seen in early Zhōu brushwork. Most noticeable is the dramatically flared tail of one dominant horizontal or downward-diagonal stroke, especially that to the lower right. This characteristic stroke has famously been called ‘silkworm head and wild goose tail’ (蠶頭雁尾 cántóu yànwěi）in Chinese) due to its distinctive shape.

The semi-cursive script (also called “running” script, 行書) approximates normal handwriting in which strokes and, more rarely, characters are allowed to run into one another. In writing in the semi-cursive script, the brush leaves the paper less often than in the regular script. Characters appear less angular and rounder. The characters are also more bold.

The cursive script (sometimes called “grass script”, 草書) is a fully cursive script, with drastic simplifications requiring specialized knowledge; even a person who can read the semi-cursive script cannot be expected to read the cursive script without training.

Entire characters may be written without lifting the brush from the paper at all, and characters frequently flow into one another. Strokes are modified or eliminated completely to facilitate smooth writing and to create a beautiful, abstract appearance. Characters are highly rounded and soft in appearance, with a noticeable lack of angular lines. Due to the drastic simplification and ligature involved, this script is not considered particularly legible to the average person, and thus has never achieved widespread use beyond the realm of literati calligraphers.

The cursive script is the source of Japanese hiragana, as well as many modern simplified forms in Simplified Chinese characters and Japanese shinjitai.

David Beckham has an excellent example of (correct) Chinese Grass Script as a tattoo.  It reads: “生死有命 富貴在天”, which is Chinese proverb of “death and life have determined appointments, riches and honor depend upon heaven.”

[It is not recommended you get a tattoo in Chinese until you can actually read Chinese, or you have very gracious friends who do that you trust very very much.]

Sources & Further Reading:

• http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Writing_in_the_World_of_Avatar
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_calligraphy
• http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/search?q=david+beckham | http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/
•  http://www.art-virtue.com/history/origin/origin.htm
• http://www.beyondcalligraphy.com/chinese_calligraphy_part_2.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)
• http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1000bce_calligraphy.htm
• http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/tps/1000bce.htm#language

(Source: asianhistory)

A statue of a Shishi  looking over Mount Emei, China

石獅, or Stone Lions are usually historically posted as guardians at doors, gates, and other places of entry in important locations (Palaces, temples, homes of the wealthy…)

The lions are always presented in pairs, a manifestation of yin and yang, the female representing yin and the male yang. The male lion has one paw (may be right or left) on an embroidered ball called a “xiù qiú” (绣球), which is sometimes carved with a geometric pattern known in the West as the “Flower of life” The female is essentially identical, but has a cub under the other paw to the male, representing the cycle of life. Symbolically, the female lion protects those dwelling inside, while the male guards the structure. Sometimes the female has her mouth closed, and the male open. This symbolizes the enunciation of the sacred word “om”. However, Japanese adaptions state that the male is inhaling, representing life, while the female exhales, representing death. Other styles have both lions with a single large pearl in each of their partially opened mouths. The pearl is carved so that it can roll about in the lion’s mouth but sized just large enough so that it can never be removed.

lolcreepyshit:

Jiang Qing ‘s reign of terror was from March 20, 1914 to May 14, 1991. She was the pseudonym that was used by Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s last wife and a major Communist Party of China power figure. Her stage name was Lan Ping during her acting years, and was known by various other names during her life time. She married Mao in Yan’an in November 1938 and has been referred to as Madame Mao in Western literature and served as Communist China’s first lady. She is well known for playing a major role in the cultural revolution (1966-76) and also for forming the radical political alliance known as the “gang of four”. From the 1940s on, Mao and Jiang quarreled frequently. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Jiang became the nation’s first lady. She worked as Director of film in the Central Propaganda Department, and as a member of the Ministry of Culture steering committee for the film industry. An uproar in 1950 led the investigation of The Life of Wu Xun, a film about a 19th century beggar who raised money to educate the poor. Jiang supported criticism of the film for celebrating counter-revolutionary ideas.

Jiang Qing was sentenced to death in 1981. In 1983, her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

While in prison, Jiang Qing was diagnosed with throat cancer, but she refused an operation. She was eventually released, on medical grounds, in 1991. At the hospital, Jiang Qing used the name Lǐ Rùnqīng. She was alleged to have committed suicide on May 14, 1991, aged 77, by hanging herself in a bathroom of her hospital. She reputedly wrote on her suicide note, “Chairman [Mao]! I love you! Your student and comrade is coming to see you!”. Her suicide occurred two days short of the 25th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution.

She wished her remains could be buried in her home province of Shandong, but in consideration of possible future vandalism to her tomb, the state decided to have her remains moved to a safer common cemetery in Beijing. Jiang Qing is buried in Fukuda Cemetery in the western hills of Beijing. Her grave is marked by a tall white stone inscribed with her school name, not the name by which she was famously known, which reads: “Tomb of Late Mother, Lǐ Yúnhè, 1914–1991”

(Source: valar-morghuliss, via rarelyinhistory)

Women Warriors of Japan:

The stories of women warriors defending their homes and their families became means to define a woman’s role in society. They trained with the naginata less to prepare for combat than to instill them with the idealized virtues necessary to be a samurai wife. A women’s work was unremitting service to the males of the household and tireless effort to teach proper behavior to her children, who were legally considered to be her husband’s alone. However, unlike the upper-class women of Victorian England, who were expected to be subservient and frail, the bushi women were expected to be subservient and strong. Their duty was to endure.

Via.

picturesofwar:

The assassination of Inejiro Asanuma:

While giving a speech in front of live television cameras, Japanese politician Inejiro Asanuma was attacked by a seventeen year old student and fatally stabbed to death.  

The student was a far rightist at odds with Asanuma’s Socialist views.

This photo was taken immediately after the sword had been pulled out of Asanuma during the stabbing.

(Source: picturesofwar)

Japonisme, that one art movement where European Artists decided to copy Japanese Artists, quite literally.

Left: Hiroshige, “The Plum Garden in Kameido”
Right: Van Gogh, “Flowering Plum Tree”