PRINT: Dog art by Shih Ping-hsi and Lin Shu-nu

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art, chinese art, dog art, shar pei, sharing, taiwanese art, year of the dog

I would buy a print of this if I could track one down.

Artist: Shih Ping-hsi [Shi Bingxi 施並錫]
Title: Sharing 兩者之間

The Chinese title is literally “Between the two.” I’m not sure that the dog with the meat in his jaws agrees with the English rendering of the title, either. That dog’s bristliness and defensive stance is something that multiple members of the House of Two Bows can relate to.

I’m not nearly as enamored by this second print, which I find horrifying in some ways.

Artist: Lin Shu-nu [林淑女]
Title: [Shar-pei] Dogs 沙皮狗（白描）

I can’t help staring, getting lost in the maze of wrinkles. Visually absorptive, yes — but I wouldn’t want it hanging from my wall. The technique is known as bai miao, Chinese line drawing with brush and ink. It’s a deft application of traditional technique on a “Chinese” dog to enhance its exaggerated physical features… though I wonder what the artist was going for by making the results so grotesque!

Both images were scanned from the collection Jia xu gou nian ming jia hua gou zhuan ji 甲戌狗年名家畫狗專輯 (Taipei: Nat’l Taiwan Arts Education Institute, 1994), dog art commissioned for 1994, the Year of the Dog.

PRINT: Yeh Fan, Plum Blossoms and Dog

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art, asian art, chinese art, chinese brush painting, chinese watercolor, dog art, taiwanese art

Been busy in the library lately. Might as well share some of the goodies.

I really like this watercolor by contemporary artist Yeh Fan 葉帆, entitled Plum Blossoms and Dog 梅花與犬. This piece was commissioned by the National Taiwan Arts Education Institute for a touring exhibition in 1994 commemorating the Year of the Dog, and appears in the collection Jia xu gou nian ming jia hua gou zhuan ji 甲戌狗年名家畫狗專輯 (Taipei: Nat’l Taiwan Arts Education Institute, 1994), p. 48.

Autobiography of a Chinese Dog, 1926 (excerpt)

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art, chinese dogs, florence ayscough, ha pa dog, lucille douglass, pekingese, pug

From The Autobiography of a Chinese Dog, written by Yo Fei and edited by his missus, Florence Ayscough (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926). Yo Fei was a Chinese ha pa dog 哈巴狗, the Chinese predecessor to the pug. He is named after the 12th century general Yue Fei 岳飛 (in modern spelling) — a very large personality to embody in such a little dog!

My favorite walk — and Missus took me out every day — lay across the Wu Sung Chiang, or Pine-Tree River of Wu, which foreigners call the ‘Soochow Creek.’ Some twelve centuries ago the famous poet Tu Fu closes a poem called ‘A Jest on the Theme of a Hills and Water Scroll by Wang Tsai’; which poem refers to the Western and the Eastern extremities of the Empire, with the words:

How did you obtain the sharp scissors from Ping Chou City —
Scissors which lay hold of the waters in the Pine-Tree River of Wu, and cut them in half.

I fancy that it is greatly changed now-a-days. Cottonmills, silk-mills, factories of all sorts line its sides; and there are literally ‘ten thousand’ boats pressed between its banks. These boats are loaded with every imaginable cargo from bales of cotton-seed to piles of pottery jars — jars of peacock blue and soft pellucid green glistening in the sunshine. They are the homes, too, of many thousand people, who are born, live, and die between their decks. So, as we ferried across the Wu Sung River, we saw Chinese life at every stage; here an infant tethered to the gunwale, there a coffin awaiting burial.

On the other side of the river we always landed at a police station. This was purely ‘modern style.’ Old China didn’t bother with policemen and such-like things: the village elders settled difficulties. I must say that the part of modern policemen or soldier does not fit my country-people very well; they appear much more at home as farmers and workmen — creating, not destroying. After all, soldiers are not so fashionable as they were, even in the West; and it seems a pity that the Chinese should try to make popular things that other people have tried and found inconvenient. (40-1)

There are literally 'ten thousand' boats pressed between its banks

The illustrations by Ayscough’s frequent collaborator and fellow expatriate Lucille Douglass really add to the charm of this most curious artifact.

While this quote was selected merely for my own amusement, and has nothing directly to do with Chinese dogs, other parts of the book offer more vivid depictions of life as a lapdog in Republican Era China. There’s also a fairly extensive summary and review of V.W.F. Collier’s Dogs of China and Japan in Art.

This is supposed to be my “fun” bedtime reading, but the grad student’s curse is to close read everything as if it were potential dissertation fodder. One thing I can say in favor of this book so far — if I ever find myself in a spiteful and foul mood after grading a stack of poorly-written student papers, I’ll be able to ream out my class by telling them that I’ve read dogs with more substantial thoughts on topics in Chinese culture, literature, and arts.

Okay, I’m not that mean. But henceforth, the temptation will always be there…

Package from Japan

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art, shiba inu, shibakenjinkai

I love getting things in the mail!

Photo taken 14 November 2010

Print 01738 from Shibakenjinkai by Tatsuro Kiuchi

This picture contains two of my favorite things: postal mail, and a Shiba Inu. (Maybe Bowpi is a little disappointed that there is no comic rendering of a Basenji in the artist’s portfolio.)

I had to order a print of my own. It arrived last week.

It’s even nicer in person than it is on a computer screen. Now to find a nice frame for it…

There are many other whimsical, minimalist, and downright surreal pieces in the series. Check it out by clicking the link above. Inquiries can be sent to the artist at flickr@tatsurokiuchi.com.

He also has a really adorable Shiba named Chai.

Sourced from an album of supreme cuteness

Musical art

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art, musical instruments, ukeleles

Last week, I visited the workshop of the guy who made this:

Image sourced from here

That’s a dog inlaid (not painted!) on the peghead of a fabulous, custom-made ukelele assembled by the master craftsman at Pohaku Ukeleles workshop. This particular ukelele is not for sale, but you can check out the details on others that are available, as well as gems of years past.

Also, random trivia: the phrase “My Dog Has Fleas” is a device for the tuning of ukelele strings. The phrase has some kind of magical incantatory/tonal qualities, whereby you hear it once, and you’ll always be able to remember how it sounds… thus allowing you to properly tune any ukelele you get your hands on. Neat, huh? I thought so too.

Dog Night with NYMPH

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akita, art, berkeley art museum, dog of juniper, japanese art, nymph, the social registry

Photos taken 8 October 2010

On a whim, and because I was intrigued by the description in the Berkeley Art Museum events program, I went to check out NYMPH on Friday night:

Japan’s Edo Period had a strict law on the books: be nice to dogs and other animals, or else! Brooklyn-based psychedelic-shred/avant-garde ensemble NYMPH bares its teeth for an evening of new music with a decidedly tribal feel. Artist and intergalactic traveler Daniel Jay projects visuals celebrating our four-legged friends, and L.A.-based artist Sara Magenheimer contributes the second of four video loops created for this L@TE series. Dog Night with NYMPH is programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons.

With nary an introduction, the four-piece took the stage and flooded the gallery with copious washes of sound. The blurb above is pretty apt; comparisons to other Japanese bands such as OOIOO, the Boredoms, Boris, and Acid Mothers Temple might also be appropriate, though I sense that the band is deliberately trying to avoid such obvious links. NYMPH’s sound reaches its expressive peaks between guitarist Matty McDermott’s hypnotic, heavily processed riffs, and singer-shaman Eri Shoji’s primal shrieks.

The set consisted of long, tranced out pieces culled from the group’s debut full-length, out now on CD at The Social Registry. A limited pressing double-disc vinyl set from their personal label the Dog of Juniper is also available directly from the band via their Myspace page. You can also sample their music at either of these linked sites.

It’s certainly not the most “accessible” music, but that’s exactly why I appreciated their set. Just as our experiences with our canine counterparts aren’t always easy and gentle (especially not with Shiba inu!), neither was this sonic tribute to the Inu in us.

However, I wished for a little more from the visual counterpart to the night’s performance; unfortunately, the images were rather static and synthetic, and thus a poor complement to the audio. Frankly, the projections fell far short of capturing the full range of either NYMPH’s sound or the essence of dogs. There was very little to tie this all together with either the program description or the Japanese art collection currently on display (which is fantastic, by the way, despite the lack of canine representation, though it includes some bold paintings and large, multi-panel screens that are rarely presented in such a cohesive collection outside of Japan).

Ultimately, that’s one of the difficulties of working with abstractions. Yet, abstraction is sometimes powerful in the way it exposes the limitations of its medium. At best, I find that abstract art is less about content or coherent themes, but how a work inspires its audience to imagine completely different perceptual planes altogether.

Sighthounds by Cori Solomon

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art, basenji, greyhounds, salukis, sighthounds, stationery, stola, whippets

The Mighty Hunter by Cori Solomon, available here

Cori Solomon draws lovely sighthounds, mostly with pastels. While I am, of course, drawn to her Basenji portraits, like The Mighty Hunter depicted above, I think some of her most arresting portraits are of Salukis, such as this majestic creature here:

Feathered Scrutiny, available here

Attitude, available here

She lives with Salukis, and has obviously studied them well to be able to render them with elegance and personality. Salukis were on my personal list of breeds to consider when we were searching for our second dog. However, STOLA (the Saluki Tree of Life Alliance) never had any listings in our area, and they weren’t really popping up elsewhere. Sadly, I’ve yet to meet one in person. I was also looking at rescue greyhounds and whippets, but in the end, I think it’s fitting that we start our sighthound experiences with the Basenji — what Cori calls “Small and Mighty.” When we’re ready, there’s a whole lifetime to work our way up to bigger, or rather, taller dogs… Shiba Inu and Basenji compensate for their relatively small stature with “big” personalities, you know.

Howling for Joy, monotype print listed here

Please check out Cori’s Pawtraits at either her art blog or her website. Note that The Mighty Hunter (the Basenji portrait pictured at the top of this entry) is still available for sale, and part of the proceeds go to STOLA. Cori also offers notecards and envelopes in packages of 6, including a set that includes both “The Mighty Hunter” and “Small and Mighty”. Contact her via her website to find out more.

Basenji portrait by Sirius Mosaics

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art, basenji, doberman pinschers, etsy, mosaic

North Carolina Basenji lovers should check this out if they’re in the neighborhood!

The above mosaic of a Basenji named Akliah will be on display at the Ciel Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina, from this Friday, September 3rd to October 15th. My Taiwanese love for cool tiles and mosaic art draws me to Lynn’s work, featured on her Flickr page as well as her Etsy shop, Sirius Mosaics. She accepts commissions — maybe something to consider if you’re looking for a unique gift for your favorite dog lover?

Each piece is a labor of love… and sometimes a little blood.

Dogs of the Asian Art Museum

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art, asian art, asian art museum, chinese art, chinese dogs, indian art, indian dogs, japanese art, japanese dogs, netsuke

I find very few ruminations on the canine-human bond in Asian literature, specifically Chinese literature, so I’m always looking for traces of it elsewhere. Some canine representations are to be found at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, where I spent the afternoon.

The Hindu deity Shiva in the fierce form of Bhairava
approx. 1300-1500
“Here, [Shiva] is shown with traditional characteristics of ferocious beings… He is accompanied by a dog, a creature with fearsome associations in India because it scavenges in cremation grounds.”

Chinese dogs, above
Left: Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE)
Right: Eastern Han (25 – 220 CE)

Sure we see dogs represented as familiars of deities and in totemic or decorative form. But where’s the dog’s place within a distinctly human world, the world of the artisan? Some evidence to be found here, in this extremely busy carving of fishermen’s daily lives:

(Sorry, period and other attributes missing from my notes. Hopefully I can fill them in later.) If you look carefully, you’ll see a dog on a leash (though I’m not sure why the dog’s caught between two figures waving sticks in the upper right), and a dog apparently mooching for a bite of a fisherwoman’s fresh catch (lower left). I didn’t really see individual figures depicting humans and canines until I got to the Japanese netsuke collection.

I’m no art historian. And it almost seems to me as if representations of canines are seldom regarded as “high art” anyway, given how close we presume these creatures to be to our mundane, workaday life. But I suppose this is all the more reason why I am intrigued by any attempts to materialize and “museumify” this relationship which begins with something so close and intimate, yet ultimately transcends space, time, and cultures.