Only less cute. Just the puffy-faced, snuffling, huddled-amidst-crumpled-paper features, the paper being kleenex rather than the crumpled paper balls that iconically signify the trials of literary creation. (tangent: what will be used to signify false starts now that paper is so rarely required for them?)
Yes, I still have the horrid cold. At least today is sunny and clear, unlike the streaming rain of yesterday. Also, last night, after I got up to clean up the cat puke, I dreamt I was on a double-decker bus with Neil Gaiman.
So things balance out, I suppose.
I meant to do a post about things I don't like reading in fantasy: monocultural worlds. But I will use the horrid cold as an excuse to postpone that, and instead refer you to Zoe's excellent post on building multicultural worlds here.
And to the works of the late (and much-missed) Jo Clayton, most especially her three Wild Magic books.
And to the works of Martha Wells, especially City of Bones and Wheel of the Infinite. There's also a moment in The Wizard Hunters where someone from a culture that has no representational art (only pattern making) encounters a trompe l'oeil painting and is fascinated by the idea of painting that looks like real things, which made me-the-reader bounce happily.
And obviously to N. K. Jemisin and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and its sequel The Broken Kingdoms.
And to Alaya Dawn Johnson's books Racing the Dark and The Burning City. Which I want to post a proper review of, when my head contains more braincells than mucus. Short form--Racing the Dark does have some first-novel markers (I don't hate adverbs, but I do notice them) but damn! the world building and the non-generic settings and the heart-wrenching turns of the story and the characters and ... oooh.
And, natch, a pointer to Terri-Lynne DeFino and her first novel Finder, set in a big sprawly fantasy world that (yay!) is not Northern Europe with jumbled place-names.
There are more, but they must wait until the proper thoughtful analytic post. Suggestions welcome....
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
Monday, September 24, 2007
the most beautiful intelligence report in history
Excerpted from The Palace Museum: Peking: treasures of the Forbidden City / by Wan-go Weng & Yang Boda, New York, Abrams, 1982, p.160-163:
"One of the most celebrated of Chinese figure paintings is Han Xizai ye yan tu, or The Night Revelry of Han Xizai. The son of a general executed by the emperor of a northern kingdom, Han (907-970) fled and offered his services to the Southern Tang dynasty. But during the reign of its last ruler, he perceived the inevitable fall of the corrupt regime and tried to stay out of politics, deliberately leading a pleasure-seeking life in order to disqualify himself from responsible positions. The suspicious monarch sent his court painters Zhou Wenju and Gu Hongzhong to spy on Han and make a visual record of his licentious behaviour.
"This scroll, attributed to Gu, is the most beautiful (and possibly the most wryly deadpan) intelligence report in history. It comprises five distinct scenes, artfully separated by three screens and one very brief space. The first scene is of feasting to lute music, with a curtained bed suggestively half-visible in the background. Han, with high hat and full beard, sits on the couch with a man in a red robe who may be Lang Can, a scholar who ranked first in an imperial examination. Before the couch stands a long, low table (like a modern coffee table) set with footed dishes of food, ewers of wine, and wine cups. Seated near the table are two guests, who are probably Chen Zhiyong, an official in charge of rites, and Chen's student Zhu Xian. The lute player is the sister of Li Jiaming, assistant director of the Imperial Theater and Music Academy, who sits watchfully by her side. The small girl in blue behind Li is Wang Wushan, an extremely talented dancer. Behind her stand two students of Han's and two servant girls. Han and most of his guests focus their attention on the lute player, thus subtly unifying the composition by sightlines.
(description of middle scenes omitted, but I can add them if requested)
"In the fourth scene, Han sits cross-legged upon one of the fashionable Western-style chairs. The wine has made him warm: his hat is still firmly on his head, but he has stripped to his loosened undergarments and is fanning himself. A concert is now in progress. Five female musicians are playing straight and cross flutes under the stern eye of Li Jiaming, who keeps the beat with a clapper. Around the edge of a floor-standing landscape screen a man and a woman exchange a few words; they serve as the transition across time and space into the fifth and final scene.
"This penetrating study of a private party displays excellent draftsmanship, exquisity coloring, an ingenious composition, and convincing details such as the celadon wine warmers typical of the tenth century. It is an exquisite commentary on the social decadence of the age. ... the characterization of Han Xizai appears to be true portraiture, although other figures are perhap within the artist's repertoire of stereotypes. The historicity of the subject has never been questioned, and the picture provides us with an irreplaceable example of Chinese figure painting datable between the tenth and twelfth centuries."
The painting is findable online, though mostly in very small images of the original or larger images of mediocre modern copies. On the very small side is this one, at the site of an artist who parodies classic works. His take on 'Night Revels' is reviewed here, and isn't a mediocre modern copy, at least. Ah, here's a more visible image (in two parts) of the original.
I've thought for a long time that this would be a terrific setup for a novel, whether straight historical or fantasy. Someday I may be capable of enough subtlety and texture to attempt it.
"One of the most celebrated of Chinese figure paintings is Han Xizai ye yan tu, or The Night Revelry of Han Xizai. The son of a general executed by the emperor of a northern kingdom, Han (907-970) fled and offered his services to the Southern Tang dynasty. But during the reign of its last ruler, he perceived the inevitable fall of the corrupt regime and tried to stay out of politics, deliberately leading a pleasure-seeking life in order to disqualify himself from responsible positions. The suspicious monarch sent his court painters Zhou Wenju and Gu Hongzhong to spy on Han and make a visual record of his licentious behaviour.
"This scroll, attributed to Gu, is the most beautiful (and possibly the most wryly deadpan) intelligence report in history. It comprises five distinct scenes, artfully separated by three screens and one very brief space. The first scene is of feasting to lute music, with a curtained bed suggestively half-visible in the background. Han, with high hat and full beard, sits on the couch with a man in a red robe who may be Lang Can, a scholar who ranked first in an imperial examination. Before the couch stands a long, low table (like a modern coffee table) set with footed dishes of food, ewers of wine, and wine cups. Seated near the table are two guests, who are probably Chen Zhiyong, an official in charge of rites, and Chen's student Zhu Xian. The lute player is the sister of Li Jiaming, assistant director of the Imperial Theater and Music Academy, who sits watchfully by her side. The small girl in blue behind Li is Wang Wushan, an extremely talented dancer. Behind her stand two students of Han's and two servant girls. Han and most of his guests focus their attention on the lute player, thus subtly unifying the composition by sightlines.
(description of middle scenes omitted, but I can add them if requested)
"In the fourth scene, Han sits cross-legged upon one of the fashionable Western-style chairs. The wine has made him warm: his hat is still firmly on his head, but he has stripped to his loosened undergarments and is fanning himself. A concert is now in progress. Five female musicians are playing straight and cross flutes under the stern eye of Li Jiaming, who keeps the beat with a clapper. Around the edge of a floor-standing landscape screen a man and a woman exchange a few words; they serve as the transition across time and space into the fifth and final scene.
"This penetrating study of a private party displays excellent draftsmanship, exquisity coloring, an ingenious composition, and convincing details such as the celadon wine warmers typical of the tenth century. It is an exquisite commentary on the social decadence of the age. ... the characterization of Han Xizai appears to be true portraiture, although other figures are perhap within the artist's repertoire of stereotypes. The historicity of the subject has never been questioned, and the picture provides us with an irreplaceable example of Chinese figure painting datable between the tenth and twelfth centuries."
The painting is findable online, though mostly in very small images of the original or larger images of mediocre modern copies. On the very small side is this one, at the site of an artist who parodies classic works. His take on 'Night Revels' is reviewed here, and isn't a mediocre modern copy, at least. Ah, here's a more visible image (in two parts) of the original.
I've thought for a long time that this would be a terrific setup for a novel, whether straight historical or fantasy. Someday I may be capable of enough subtlety and texture to attempt it.
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