Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Koku Saitcho shounin.jpg

Japanese calligraphy

Original - Cry for noble Saichō (哭最澄上人), written by Emperor Saga of Japan upon the death of the Buddhist monk Saichō in the 9th century. The influence of Chinese calligraphic styles had weakened after the Heian period, with this text as one of the few examples of the transformation to a native Japanese style.

Not for voting - For comparison purposes, this is Chinese calligraphy from the 7th century, and you can see the stylistic differences between the Japanese style above and the cursive Chinese style (2nd and 4th columns, counting from the right).

Reason

Beautiful example of Japanese calligraphy and an important historical document, as it shows the development of a Japanese style, transitioning away from the Chinese style that had heretofore dominated.

Articles this image appears in

Japanese calligraphy, Emperor Saga

Creator

Emperor Saga

• Support as nominator --howcheng {chat} 04:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support - a little obscure to Westerners, but definitely worth having as a featured picture. We don't do systemic bias here =) Any chance of a transcription? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
  • That could be a toughie. I might try at the Japanese Wikipedia, but I'm certainly not capable of it. howcheng {chat} 16:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I asked User:Laitche who is Japanese and he says that this is really old Japanese or possibly Chinese, but in either case it's beyond him. It may only be readable by scholars of this stuff. howcheng {chat} 21:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
      • At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Transcription request, Sushiya passed along the following from the Japanese Wikipedia:

"釈文:（香煙は）像爐に（続く）　蒼生橋梁に少なく　緇侶（しりょ）律儀疎（うと）し　法軆何ぞ久しく住（とど）まらん　塵心傷みて餘り有り". So, the pictured text should be: "像爐蒼生橋梁 / 少緇侶律儀疎 / 法軆何久住塵 / 心傷有餘". --Sushiya (talk) 13:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• • • • Fg2 (talk) 04:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support per nomination. Everything a text FP ought to be. Durova^Charge! 07:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I see several little dots and spots around-are these supposed to be part of the calligraphy or are they on the paper itself?-in which case would it be better to remove them? Lemon martini (talk) 14:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
  • They're not part of the calligraphy; they might be ink drops, or they might be scanning/printing artifacts, but I'd be hard pressed to determine which. howcheng {chat} 16:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support. That's pretty crazy awesome to have a pic created by an emperor. My guess would be that the black dots are just ink drops like Howcheng said. Intothewoods29 (talk) 20:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support -- Chris 73 | Talk 06:56, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Koku Saitcho shounin.jpg MER-C 10:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)