Is this calligraphy odd/trash or it can pass?

[Sara Lee]

Hello there,
I found this calligraphy work online (the right column) and I thought this was pretty enough to use it for a graphic work, but I was explained that it's odd to see, like a cursive in caps lock. I tried to fix it by adding the same poem to the right in a regular writing font, one of the two version can maybe save the odd column? Or does this make the whole writing even worse? 

[A Smug Dill]

Firstly, welcome to FPN.

 

The ‘calligraphy’ on the right hand side of the images looks pretty enough, but definite ‘unnatural’. It looks more like screams being an ‘artifical’ computer font or typeface than actual brushwork in the tradition of xingshu it apparently is emulating. There's nothing wrong with designed and engineered graphics, as long as you're not trying to pass it off as output made by hand.

[Sara Lee]

Thank you so much @A Smug Dill ❤️

Yes, I obv consider it more an aesthetic work than a true running script, I just want to be sure that this can be agreable also by native (not like the chinese version of comic sans or whatever ahah).

Then, I don't know if it's better to use contrast or similarity to merge it with the two columns at the right, maybe the thin handwritten can be more agreable and match better with the artificial computer mood? Or does the bold regular match better with the bold strokes?

PS. I was told that this can seem a poster of sth, can you confirm?

Edited June 5 by Sara Lee

[Shanghai Knife Dude]

1. If you planning a tattoo, I suggest to halt it now. 

2.the one on the left, is a “computer cursive”, I can even smell the computer before click into this thread. And, unfortunately, this computer front of 幽， 素， isn't that correct. 

3. "cursive calligraphy" is topic of great complexity with rigid completed closed system. I ensure you 99% of modern Chinese speakers are not equipped with that knowledge of that system. It's literally another system, which originates from 隶书， 今隶 to be precise. 

4.check out the ribs of David Beckham. That's few of the things out there i would call it a good work. 

5.in term of language, don't easily trust any tattooist. 

[Number99]

Using cursive (草书 草書) in real life outside of calligraphy in a Hanzi Culture Area is more dangerous than writing in a foreign language.

Even if one writes a small translation, I believe that the writer will have to take responsibility for any accidents that occur due to misreading.

Personally, I hope that the practice will not spread before accidents resulting in loss of life occur.

 

There is no string on the right side corresponding to the "七弦一曲罢静品圣人心" on the left side.

 

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

On 6/5/2024 at 8:20 PM, Sara Lee said:

PS. I was told that this can seem a poster of sth, can you confirm?

 

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking me there, especially when you haven't disclosed for what or how you want to use that image altogether.

 

I can imagine such being printed on (and/or stamped into) the tin for commercially produced Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes, or marketing collateral advertising such. Or in marketing images for any number of HongDian pens or Chinese-branded inks, appropriating Chinese poetry from antiquity, to appeal to today's mass-market consumers who aren't necessarily well-versed.

 

On 6/6/2024 at 5:10 AM, Number99 said:

Personally, I hope that the practice will not spread before accidents resulting in loss of life occur.

 

LOL, that's funny as heck!

 

On 6/6/2024 at 5:10 AM, Number99 said:

There is no string on the right side corresponding to the "七弦一曲罢静品圣人心" on the left side.

 

The first half of the twenty words seem to have been originated in Li Bai's poem《月夜聽盧子順彈琴》from the Tang dynasty/era, and appropriated by some guqin practitioners in taglines (or lyrics?) for their tunes; the remaining ten words don't belong to that poem. Google search led me to three separate YouTube clips, all to do with performance of the guqin (and all for differently named tunes/works), when all twenty words were used together as the search term.

 

The way I see it, it makes about as much sense, and/or exhibits about as much good taste, as would:

if some online marketplace platform were to appropriate a line from Lord Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott.

[Sara Lee]

@A Smug Dill

Ok, so would you consider it a commercial font, right?

AHAHAH I didn't check right enough the poem I guess 💔, thank you for let me know. 
I've searched better and most sources had this lines, can you confirm it's the original version?
 

闲坐夜明月，幽人弹素琴。

忽闻悲风调，宛若寒松吟

The image you posted is very pretty, does the chinese computer graphic work in the topic have the same impact on you?

[Sara Lee]

Thank you very much, you gave me such an interesting reply.

 

12 hours ago, Shanghai Knife Dude said:

2.the one on the left, is a “computer cursive”, I can even smell the computer before click into this thread. And, unfortunately, this computer front of 幽， 素， isn't that correct. 

Are you referring just to the first version, with the bold font, or also to the second one, with the simulated "handwritten"? 
And would consider also the right column bad and wrong? Just as a tattoo or even as a picture on the wall? 

[Sara Lee]

 

12 hours ago, Number99 said:

Even if one writes a small translation, I believe that the writer will have to take responsibility for any accidents that occur due to misreading.

 

Do you mean that there are mistakes in the columns? Can I ask you to point them?

[A Smug Dill]

14 minutes ago, Sara Lee said:

Ok, so would you consider it a commercial font, right?

 

Do you want me to answer frankly?

[Sara Lee]

This is the calligraphy I used for the artwork in the topic, is it a trap for white mouses or is it my fault? Have I changed too much?

[Sara Lee]

 

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Do you want me to answer frankly?

Yes :')

[Shanghai Knife Dude]

1 minute ago, Sara Lee said:

Are you referring just to the first version, with the bold font, or also to the second one, with the simulated "handwritten"? 
And would consider also the right column bad and wrong? Just as a tattoo or even as a picture on the wall? 

I was referring to the bold version on the right, machine cursive. 

 

On the wall of your house, everything will be OK. I just can't bear how those horrible designed Chinese being tattooed on people, it should be a crime.

 

I am a self trained calligrapher myself, specialised in the scope of cursive font. That's why I could say much. I have few knowledge in other fonts though. 

[Shanghai Knife Dude]

3 minutes ago, Sara Lee said:

This is the calligraphy I used for the artwork in the topic, is it a trap for white mouses or is it my fault? Have I changed too much?

Certainly it is a 江湖体, which stands for things you could get from carnivals or random Chinese supermarket operated by either Vietnamese or Korean. My whole body starts itchy seeing this. 

[A Smug Dill]

13 minutes ago, Sara Lee said:

is it a trap for white mouses or is it my fault?

 

It isn't so much a “commercial font” as it is gimmicky, analogous to these or these, almost as if the user is trying to appeal to twenty-year-olds but sound just that little bit more learned or sophisticated than a high-schooler.

 

29 minutes ago, Sara Lee said:

I've searched better and most sources had this lines, can you confirm it's the original version?

 

That's the first half of Li Bai's poem, yes. The way I read it, the omitted second half of the poem alluded to the loneliness arising from one's lack of like-minded folk in sentiment and/or cultivation.

 

To what purpose are you intending to put the writing or image? For a bit, I thought you were somehow associated with those commercial groups of guqin practitioners.

[Sara Lee]

3 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

To what purpose are you intending to put the writing or image? For a bit, I thought you were somehow associated with those commercial groups of guqin practitioners.

I just wanted to hang it on the wall in my room, and, badly guilty, maybe even to plan a tattoo.

Now I feel like a criminal, sorry @Shanghai Knife Dude please don't hate me:
 

12 minutes ago, Shanghai Knife Dude said:

Certainly it is a 江湖体, which stands for things you could get from carnivals or random Chinese supermarket operated by either Vietnamese or Korean. My whole body starts itchy seeing this. 

I didn't know this 😭

(and thank you all for your replies 🙏)

[A Smug Dill]

50 minutes ago, Sara Lee said:

I just wanted to hang it on the wall in my room,

 

If it resonates with you and gives you calm (or whichever emotion you want it to elicit), then don't worry about what anyone else thinks of it.

[Sara Lee]

28 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

If it resonates with you and gives you calm (or whichever emotion you want it to elicit), then don't worry about what anyone else thinks of it.

Thank you, you're wise and right, but I also want it to be "true". If it seems a vietnamese shop or an anti-cultural tattoo, I prefer to change subject.
Or try to write one by myself, but I'm afraid that it could be just too ambitious.

[Sara Lee]

2 hours ago, Shanghai Knife Dude said:

Certainly it is a 江湖体, which stands for things you could get from carnivals or random Chinese supermarket operated by either Vietnamese or Korean. My whole body starts itchy seeing this. 

I'm trying to learn more about this, but I can't really see the difference with a true calligraphy work. Now that I know the existence of "jianghu style", everything I see online it looks "jianghu style" to me ahah 💔

How can I spot the difference between the two?

NB: There's another thing that I don't understand. Is it consider to be totally trashy and obnoxious or do you still appreciate the beauty, like "pretty but dumb"? It's like "Comics Sans" font for us (used by downtown churches or school teachers with no sense of aesthetic) or more like a, I don't know, graffiti or gothic font (cool for artworks, but sometimes a little yokel for tattoos)?

Edited June 6 by Sara Lee

[Number99]

7 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

The first half of the twenty words seem to have been originated in Li Bai's poem《月夜聽盧子順彈琴》from the Tang dynasty/era, and appropriated by some guqin practitioners in taglines (or lyrics?) for their tunes; the remaining ten words don't belong to that poem. Google search led me to three separate YouTube clips, all to do with performance of the guqin (and all for differently named tunes/works), when all twenty words were used together as the search term.

 

The way I see it, it makes about as much sense, and/or exhibits about as much good taste, as would:

if some online marketplace platform were to appropriate a line from Lord Tennyson's The Lady of Shallot

I recognized those strings as translations, so I thought there was a lack. It is unnatural to repeat the same string almost half the time. Does Li Bai, one of China's most historically famous poets, do so as well?

 

You have explained by replacing cursive script with English letters that everyone can read.

That is a logical fallacy and sophistry.

And you have commented thus in the past.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/368395-does-anyone-read-kanji/?do=findComment&comment=4569598

The red-letter inscription indicates that it is a Huaya (花押), so it is possible that it uses its own variant script.

But you are referring to a character you cannot read with the preconceived notion that it is cursive. 

References that mislead Westerners into thinking that people from Hanzi cultures can read cursive should not be made.

🤔

 

7 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

LOL, that's funny as heck!

Is it so funny that people die? …

I have experienced some accidents where people died due to unthinkable misunderstandings…If an environment in which cursive fonts can be easily selected in word processing software simply because they look cool becomes commonplace, erroneous output will surely occur.

Please laugh just as much when there are actual deaths…

😓

 

Edited June 6 by Number99