translating blue-green (汝窯 青磁)

竹枝詞 劉寓錫
楊柳青青江水平,
聞郎江上踏歌聲.
東邊日出西邊雨,
道是無情卻有情

Bamboo Stalk Lyrics by Liu Yuxi
Willow trees dangle blue-green; the river flows languidly as
I hear my lover's voice, singing joyfully as he walks upstream
Clear morning skies in the East; while in the West it rains
...It almost seems heartless, and yet my lover sings in blue-green

 

I knew he wouldn't approve of my translation. The illustrious Wang sensei is no pushover, that's for sure. 

But, what to do about translating the word for China's blue-green color, qīng (青)? A color that is so associated with late spring and early summer it is thought to express the color of nature itself. A green so deep it is blue. Like the dark moss at Nikko, the color of willow trees and slowly moving rivers, dragons, dragonflies, tea and bamboo, all of these things are known as qīng. In spring, people talk of "stepping on blue" （踏青→ getting out and walking in nature）, and along with the Japanese idea of the gods of the fields returning from their long slumber around this time of year, this concept of the return of blue-green is deeply connected to Japanese sensibilities surrounding cherry blossom viewing. The best time of year in which to begin a love affair (since we know from Genji that everything is sure to be dashed to hell by the start of autumn), it is a time for picnicking and picking herbs outdoors (山菜摘み）...the time of 清明; late spring into early summer is a world of blue-green.

And so as the famous poet said:  "Shu rivers are green and Shu mountains are blue" (蜀江水碧蜀山青).

**

Qīng (青).

My beloved too loves painting in blue. In fact, you could almost say he was obsessed with the color. And, while-- like me-- he loved all shades of blue-green-- one shade in particular fascinated him. Sometimes, he and I would wile away the hours playfully trying to describe some particular shade of color to each other. He, though, always came back to that one specific shade:

"Close your eyes and imagine the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..."

I closed my eyes and recalled that slowly over the years, my Emperor's unquenchable “yearning for blue" was a beautiful, imperial dream which had somehow worked its way into my own heart. And, I became fascinated not so much by his passion as by his method. For what better way to "capture" a particular shade of color than in porcelain?

So an emperor dreams of blue. And being the wish of an Emperor, his wish was everyone's command and it wouldn’t take long for the ingenious potters at nearby Ru to provide him with exactly what he as looking for:

The most beautiful porcelain in the world

Because Ru ware was created with the Emperor’s particular taste in mind and then disappeared so mysteriously without a trace after the fall of his dynasty, it has been forever after associated with my man. And, with less than 100 surviving examples, a very small piece was sold several years ago at Sotheby’s in New York for approximately 1.5 million dollars. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds the great majority of the remaining pieces, with a fairly large number held in British museums as well.

As rare as they are stunningly beautiful; the celadon glaze ranges from pale green to a lavender blue and is characterized by its delicate opalescent quality caused by minute crystals and air bubbles trapped in the glaze. It is this shimmering quality--this transportive luminecence-- which reminds me of the luxerious purple of the Roman emperors. But then again Huizong's blue, in my opinion is far finer yet.

Due to its watery translucency and magnificent green-blue color, the quality of its much admired glaze reminds one more than anything else of jade, and although countless artists and even scientists have tried to re-create it, its exact method of production remains a mystery. 

Researcher, Fumito Kondo, on assignment for Japan’s NHK, visited the Ru kiln site not all that long ago, and he describes his meeting with a Chinese researcher, a certain Mr. Zhu, who had been working for over 20 years en-situ, attempting to unlock the glaze’s secrets. Kondo writes,

On the day we arrived at Ru to begin filming, 30 pieces of celedon were being fired. The color in celedon glaze is extremely delicate and so  slight changes occur depending on where the vessel is placed inside the kiln. Mr Zhu, carefully removing each piece, upon examing
them, discovered that not one piece had turned out! Mr. Zhu then
exclaimed that 20 years at Ru together with all the advances in
modern technology had been unable so far to bring back that very
mysterious color blue.  

A shimmering blue-green-lavender that has somehow been lost forever. This dream of the rain-drenched color of the morning sky after a storm was, in his own words, "like a vision or a poem between us...a work of floating imagery...a dream: it is very blue...very deep. Blue..."

-- Recommended viewing: Ru Ware at the Palace Museum

--Painting below in blue by Tullio deSantis: This is my Mind and Aquarelle by the Great Samuel Peralta

 

 

Aquarelle

The oars dip in silence, gentle
As the soft light over the waters
Or the ripples slowly spreading

From the shadow of the shore.
Far away the leaves are falling
Into an autumn that is you

And me, our lives gently touching,
Here and beneath the waters,
Like a moon and sky that sets

An evergreen blue. 

Comments

[Jan Walls]

When I grow up, I want to write as 清ら　(きよら= elegantly beautiful, notice the blue-green and water embodied in the very idea) as you.

Keep up the good work,

Jan

[Steven Forth]

We don'twant you to grow up Jan.

[Otavio Lilla]

beautiful!

[prashant]

if ever the Himalayas falls in thy path....please visit us and share thy mindstream.

[peony]

Prashant,

Now, THAT would be a pleasure!! I love Shimla..and your place looks like heaven on earth.... see you on facebook in the meantime :)

[Facebook conversation]

Comments from FB

RY: Bravo.....must share this.

SP: Ah. That article was unrelentingly beautiful.

StP: I'll have to google RU ware and hope to see a sample. Fascinating
article. Think I'll share it too.

SF Bai Juyi is of course a follower of Wang ... this is a decpetive color, I think of it as the color of the sea, constantly changing with the sky. Is it associated with a hexagram in the Book of Changes?

Peony: A color like the sea--- like Homer's wine dark sea? I always think of the color as the mossy green at Nikko or the color of the mountains in August in Kyoto... like that?
And, yeah,... we would NEVER want our friend the illustrious 王先生 to grow up, would we?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhApYxZisBI

JW Qīng is the colour of the east, whose season is spring, whose symbolic animal is the dragon, and whose element is fire. If you place the 8 Trigrams around the Taiji Chart, according to the Prior Heaven placement, the trigram for due east is "Li" (fire)

SF: I have always loved that phrase, "the wine dark sea" but it is not my experience of being out on the water, where the sea is a million shades of
light and dark, many of them the color of fear. Even on a fine day, that rippled shaping of blues cathing the light could be a rock. For me it is in
the sea that the spectrum shifts are fastest and deepest, those of plants
slower and more sustaining. Rain here today, which we needed,and I spent
some time this morning pinching the basils and oreganos, all shades of 青.

Peony: ‎ this about 玄武 below:
http://www.tangdynastytimes.com/2010/04/1000-kilometers-north.html

And:
Saudi Aramco World on the purple stuff:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200604/millennia.of.murex.htm

Peony: S, looks like my comment got "disappeared" ....? But i said something like Homer's blood red sea gets its name from the purple dye that the Phoencians sold and since the Phoenicians "owned" the Seas, that was an epithet (?) for the Mediterrean...

SF Very very interesting, dye stuffs are one of the things that bind so many meanings and so much trade over the centuries - off thread - Slocum
collected tallow from a wreck while in Terra Del Fuego and traded it to finance his voyage.

Peony Tallow? Well, tallow is not so glamorous as a shipwreck or tyrian dye but still it is fascinating, isn't it? Fillls up the sailes of one's imagination...

SF: Yes, I was surprized that tallow was such an important trade item. And then there is madder.
http://www.google.ca/images?hl=en&rlz&q=madder&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi I
am sure you have a post on madder somewhere?

Peony : :)
Surely, you would agree that madder is far less interesting than the other one made from insects?? worms?? can't remember..

SF: It is hard to beat sea snails of course and I think you are referring to
http://www.google.ca/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=cochineal&aq=6&aqi=g10&aql&oq=coch&gs_rfai

[Jan Walls]

...or, if you wanted to capture the obvious pun in the last line of Liu Yuxi's lyric:

Weeping willows dangle green,

the river gently flows,

I hear my lover upstream

 singing as he goes.

The sun shines in the east

while in the west it rains:

You could say this isn't fair, [无情(晴) wúqíng lack fair feelings (weather)

 but then again it's fair. [有情{晴} yǒuqíng have fair feelings (weather)]
;-)

[Ting-Jen]

I read this before Leanne - it is one of my favourite posts on your blog! :)) When Lin Hwai-Min (artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre) was creating the background/stage setting for Cursive II (of his *brilliant* Cursive Trilogy), w...ith the help of Zhang Zan-Tao (張贊桃, an artist of light indeed), he continued his thought of 'colours which are very Chinese'... In 'Cursive' it was the colours of beige-white 宣紙 w/ little natural specks, the red ink used for a seal, and different degrees of black, of course. Whilst in Cursive II, they used the colours of Chinese celadon ware with the unbearably stunning crazing - spreading from reddish magenta to lavender and slowly bleeding into the celadon. One background was a blown-up image of these colours. It was incredible. The colours created an extraordinary, highly meditative air for the 'superhuman dancers' to play with their perfectly, beautifully controlled chi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWAhUA05R4c&feature=youtu.be

And, Yes Cloud Gate's movements are highly influenced by taichi, in addition to the obvious martial arts. In my favourite work of Lin Hwai-Min, "Moon Water," the art of meditation is central. Lin had his dancers practise meditation and chigong with a master for a few years before starting the rehearsal of Moon Water. And for Cursive, all dancers had to learn calligraphy (the scale is amazing, sometimes, they'd each practise a piece as large as the room) again for months or years before the rehearsal of the actual dance started. One of their most recent work 屋漏痕 (Water Stains on the Wall) is quickly becoming my favourite - http://www.poeticoneirism.blogspot.com/2010/12/beauty-of-water-stains-on-wall.html Another piece inspired by Chinese calligraphy.

[牡丹]

Beautiful skies here, Jan..... my 西湖 also used to be willow lined (when I was a little girl)

For you (posted on facebook--did you see?):
Tangled up in blue

And:
梦蝶

Be sure to check out Ting-Jen's links above--very totally superb! xoxo