A similar experience happened for a few summers. I was disappointed but, at the same time, felt relieved because it was such an intense mental exercise. But as I assimilated into Japanese life in a few days, such imaginations dissipated completely. Years ago, when I first started to incorporate kanji origin into my classroom teaching, on my arrival in Japan in the summer, I felt like every street sign I saw from a bus, taxi, and train was challenging me with a puzzle – “Can you analyze those kanji into components and recall the ancient shape with the meaning for every component?” When I could solve it, I felt happy. Those kanji are just to give you pragmatic information to help your life, and become mundane and evoke no imagination. You cannot live in Japan without kanji coming into view wherever you go. The seal-style characters called tensho (篆書) in Japanese are still practiced in calligraphy, and a modern book affirms that kanji is still intrinsically connected to the origin of each component. ![]() With his artistic struggle to create images that are fresh, unsoiled, and unique in modern life, Awazu relived the creative life of ancient character creators by copying oracle bone-style characters. We also look at an unlikely match of a modern graphic designer Kiyoshi Awazu and 3,300 years old oracle bone-style characters. In Part 4 Designs Around the Town, we see some examples of designer’s writings inspired by ancient styles on a storefront sign, a tourism ad, and an inconspicuous panel in Yokohama Chinatown.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |