Can you help me translate, Japanese? Chinese?

Hi everyone,

Picked this item up cheap today because it looks old. I don't know where to begin with translation. Any help you can provide would be wonderful!

 

Hi Nate, I'm really trying to make heads or tails out of the picture, I see delicate flowers and then a large blob in the middle .. what IS that object ??? Could someone explain it to me please ... Joy.

 

Looks like its written in Kangi - a formal Japanese writing originated from Chian. Roughly translated as "birds in a willow forest." The last word seems to b bird.

 

But WHAT is that large blob in the center of the picture .. in the middle of the flowers and leaves ?? ... Joy.

 

Thank you very much Wailee, do you know if there is a way to identify the name of the artist?

 

???? ...

 

Well I thought it was a rock with the tree growing around it. In looking closer, it looks like the "rock" landed on the tree scaring all the birds away. Where did all the birds in the willow tree go? There are no birds in the picture.

@Wailee - welcome to the board. Glad to have someone who can read Japanese.
My comments are meant to be funny and not critical of you. We tend to get off track at times.

 

I absolutely love the off track discussion either way. It is strange to have a painting with birds in the name and no birds in the picture...

 

It looks as if the painting has been partially overpainted in the middle. I think I can see the faint outline of tree and branch and flower in the blob. Perhaps the painting got some water or other liquid on it and some of the paint / watercolour stained or ran? But then it looks as if the stain or whatever has a definite outline or border.
Not that fixable.

 

i think it is chinese. possibly plum blossom and rock: both very common chinese brush painting themes. use "chinese brush painting rock with flowers" to get examples.
sorry i cannot read the chinese characters

 

Just a guess. The title could be based on a poem, and part of a series maybe. The rock and blossoms could be from another part of the poem.

@Silver Wolf , I know it is a different language, but the characters and their meaning are probably similar to Chinese?

 

Or maybe the blob is the bird on nest.

Back of Bird?


Front of Bird

 

An interesting observation. I'm inclined to believe (after looking at the previous comments) that it might be damage rather than intentional. I'm thinking maybe I'll take it out of the frame and see what the edges look like, if it was intentional I would expect to see that painting extending down beyond the visibility of the frame. It also may yield clues about the damage the painting experienced (if any).

 

There's 50,000 Chinese characters and most people only use 3000,it is also calligraphy and somewhat different than standard words.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/characters/characters_howmany.shtml

 

Hi,
I remember seeing a Chinese typewriter in the 1960s. The bar with the letters was 5 ft long and as big around as a saucer.
greg

 

i think it's not easy to read chinese/japanese in caligraphy form,but you're right i think this is chinese,yes it could be part of poem

 

Chinese, not Japanese. The characters are YANG (family name, which comes first) Shulin (杨舒林 / YANG Shulin is the painter's name). The last character is "xie" (写) and it means "wrote," so the inscription means, "YANG Shulin wrote/painted (this painting)". Chinese scholars (painters, literati) often used the term "wrote" to mean "painted" and "hua" which mean to paint to mean "wrote" when doing calligraphy, as a form of expressing that painting and calligraphy share the way brush work was and still is used in traditional Chinese painting. To "draw or paint characters" and to "write a paint" are an art only attainable (with quality) by scholars and men of letters.
The object in the center is a rock, not a bird.
The Japanese imported the Chinese characters, and they are referred to as "kanji" (Japanese for "han zi / 汉字" or "Chinese characters") but this is a Chinese painting. The Japanese also use, side-by-side with kanji, the phonetic hiragana and katakana, which differ from Chinese characters. In my opinion, this is a Chinese painting, not Japanese. The name (YANG Shulin) is also Chinese. Hope this helps. I'll do some digging, but the quality of the painting is not all that great.

 

Thank you for confirming my first thought.

 

No damage. The rock painting is as intended. Check this link and you may be able to understand why the rock is painted as is.

https://www.mosleyart.com/the-scholars-rock.html

Chinese scholars have a love affair with "weird rocks" and they can be worth their weight in gold (well, almost... but pretty close in some cases...)