"ID"ographs

Page

“ID”OGRAPHSA creative activity inspired by Chinese characters

Page

Introduction“ID”OGRAPHS is a drawing activity in which you create your own personally meaningful symbol.

Ideographs are pictures or clusters of pictures that stand for an idea. Among ideographs that stand for human values, many inspiring examples are found in written Chinese:

• A full spectrum of values is expressed.• Pictures are often combined in clever, unexpected

ways.• Chinese characters have undergone many changes over

time. Studying some examples can suggest imaginative ways of visually transforming any rudimentary ideograph.

To start, have a look at some examples from Chinese7

Good Fortune (Page 8)

Long life (Page 9)

Moral rectitude (Page 10)

Charity (Page 14)

Turn to the page number for more info.

2

Page

Step 1. Draw six simple pictures:

1. an ordinary use item

2. a living thing in nature

3. an inanimate thing in nature

4. a part of the body

6. something from a day of celebration

5. one or more person(s) you knowKeep it simple! Like cave art.Stick figures! Scribbles!

Pick things that you like!

Creation: Create your own ‘ID”OGRAPH in 5 steps

3

Page

Step 2: Choose one picture from Step 1 that could symbolize a personal value. Re-draw it below, and write out a sentence describing what it represents.

a sentence describing a value

Focus on your most closely held values.

E.g. a picture of soap could suggest “I value good hygiene”. A telephone could suggest “I value communicating with people”.

Creation

a picture copied from Step 1

4

Page

Step 3:Go back and choose one or two more pictures from Step 1 that could also be connected to your idea. Re-draw them in the box in Step 2, clustering the pictures together.

E.g. adding a picture of an ocean next to a telephone could suggest communicating with faraway friends. (A picture of a rope, a computer, a pen, a person etc. could be connected to this idea too).

Don’t worry for now if the connection between the pictures and your idea is not absolutely clear.

Creation

5

Page

Now re-work the way these pictures are combined and re-write the sentence that describes the value they illustrate.

Step 4:

sentence revision

symbol revision

If you’re stuck return to Step 1 and draw a few more simple pictures to incorporate.

Look at examples of Chinese characters for ideas of how to integrate and stylize your symbol.Add, subtract, rearrange, transform. Whatever feels right!

An iterative process of refinement

Creation

6

Page

Creation

Draw your finished symbol and write its caption.

Step 5:

Add your design to the gallery! Scan and upload to:www.art-spring.org/IDographs

Use as your online avatar

Use as your signature

Update as you grow!

7

Fú

Happiness, good fortune

Wine is offered to household gods in prayer for good fortune.

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:

Glossary of Chinese ideographs

Comment:“*” symbolizes a highly cherished idea in traditional Chinese culture. It is a popular decorative motif on household objects, architecture, and all forms of visual art. Consequently it has been rendered in many different ways, often deviating considerably from the basic ideograph.

a wine jug

an altar

two hands

Decorative variants (Used on seals, jewelry,

architectural adornments etc.) 1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body


Key

5. one or more person(s) you know

“Bronze”

Clerical Script

Oracle Bone

Modern Script

Shòu

Long life

An old man’s long hair and cane are indicative of a long life; a walk along a river is a metaphor for one’s life journey.

Comment:Longevity has been expressed as an important cultural value throughout China’s history, and the character “�” is used in a wide variety of decorative motifs and artworks in addition to prose. The hair and walking cane are the same as found in the character for “old” (+). The lower components of the character have more ambiguous derivations and scholars disagree.

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:

�Modern Script

the hair on old man’s head a walking cane

a long river

Oracle Bone

footsteps

“Bronze”

Clerical Script

Decorative variants (Used on seals, jewelry,

architectural adornments etc.)

1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body


Key




Comment:Inspecting a military file along a road may have been the initial context for this symbol, that later became associated with the qualities of the inspector himself, i.e. the military commander. Today “�” has no military connotations, but the ideograph is still effective in conveying a modern-day idea of morality which may be expressed as “seeing straight from one’s heart.”

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:

Dé

Virtue, Morality

Rectitude is indicated by an arrow and eye, looking straight across an intersection. The heart suggests interiority or emotional sensibility. Together the symbol stands for inner rectitude, or morality.

�

an arrow pointing up

A crossroads (originally “ ”)

an eye

Oracle Bone“Bronze”

Seal Script

Clerical Script



Key


Modern Script

a person

XieZhi, a mythical beast

a doorway

water

F!

Law, Lawful

The mythical beast XieZhi was fabled to charge any person who spoke a falsehood. A person exiting through a door, being chased by XieZhi indicates the banishment of falsehood. Water always returns to a level state, which is the desired effect of law on a tumultuous society.

“Bronze”Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:

Seal Script

Regular Script




Key


Comment:The XieZhi component is a pictograph of a symbolic animal, essentially a symbol within a symbol. Ideographs can contain more dense meanings this way, however not many symbols are consistently recognized across cultures and generations. The XieZhi component has been eliminated entirely in the modern script.

�Modern Script

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:


Jiào

Education, Teach

A child being beaten on the head with a stick is indicated by cartoon-style “x” marks symbolizing the strike.

Comment:The conceptual logic of this ideograph is clear, but it is a strikingly anachronistic way of expressing the idea of “education.” This is a fine example of how values change over time, and how the cultural expressions of one generation may not satisfy the needs of another.

a child

a hand

a stick

Oracle Bone “Bronze”

Seal Script

�Modern Script


6. something from a day of celebration5. one or more person(s) you know

Key

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:

Xué

To learn, learning

The “x” is a net which is being fabricated. Learning, like making a net, is a meticulous activity: the finer it is the more that can be apprehended, or caught. The home is an early place of learning, and the child is the home’s most active learner.

Comment:Fabricating a net is an elegant analogy for learning, but how can we be sure this is actually what is represented here? Scholars can research cultural forms that have been passed down through generations for clues, such as the arts, language and so forth. No interpretation is certain however. They should be considered ‘working theories’ in a field of different possibilities.

two hands

a house

a fishing net

Oracle Bone


a child

“Bronze”

Seal Script

Regular Script

�Modern Script1. an ordinary use item

2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body


Key

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:


Shàn

Good, Kind, Charitable

The horns of a goat were used for decorative headgear and masks worn on days of celebration, and later the pictograph for goat became a symbol for positive values in general. The horizontal bar on top of the tongues represents the spoken word. Together the symbol suggests two people exchanging words in a positive, mutually supportive spirit.

a goat’s head

two “speech” ideographs comprised of a mouth, extending tongue and horizontal bar

Oracle Bone

Oracle Bone “goat”

Oracle Bone “tongue”

Seal Script

Regular Script

�Modern Script

Comment:This is a good example of how abstract ideas can be expressed by building up connected elements (i.e. mouth + tongue + horizontal bar), while other ideas can be introduced by adding separate elements (i.e. goat).



Key

Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:


B!o

Protect

This is a straightforward ideograph of a mother embracing her child and providing protection from harm.

Comment:The semantic meaning of the modern script has broadened beyond the relationship exemplified by mother and child. %�5environmental protection), �4 (insurance), �/(guarantee) are a few examples. This raises an important question: to what degree do the symbols we use constrain our ideas? In other words, if conveyed through other symbols how might these concepts be differently understood?

a mother with arms outstretched

a child


Regular Script

�Modern Script



Key


Pronunciation:

Translation:

Interpretation:


Tàn

Explore

A hand is groping in the darkness of a cave, exploring the unknown surfaces. The marks near the hand may indicate darkness, or to-and-fro movements of the hand itself.

Comment:The modern script incorporates the radical for “hand” on the left, and the hand inside the cave has evolved to resemble the character for wood (�). Such modifications happen for a variety of reasons including deliberate efforts at disambiguation as well as accidental mis-copying by early scribes.

a cave

a hand waving to-and-fro


Seal Script

�Modern Script



Key


“Oracle Bone” carved shells and bones Shang dynasty (~1400-1050 BCE)

2.Bamboo and wooden slips. Late Shang dynasty through Han dynasty (~1200 BCE to ~400 A.D.)

3.Bronze inscriptions Shang dynasty through Zhou dynasty (~1400 to ~250 BCE)

Appendix - Archeological record of early Chinese scripts

17

Page

English-language Chinese etymology resources

Leon Long-yien Chang and Peter Miller. Four thousand years of Chinese calligraphyUniversity of Chicago Press, Chicago:1990

Kenneth G. Henshall. A guide to remembering Japanese charactersCharles E Tuttle: 1988.

“Abstract concept formation in archaic Chinese Script Forms: Some Humboldtian Perspectives”Tze-wan Kwan. Philosophy East & West, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Volume 61, Number 3, July 2011 p409.

Richard Sears’ Online Chinese Etymology http://www.chineseetymology.org

Chinese-language Chinese etymology resources

��,. 1000��(2!�"� : ��&-�= Origin and Evolution of 1,000 Chinese Characters: Collection of Illustrations ��#), ��72005

��,. ��"��'� = Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases��0.��#)6��72002

� ,. ��"�31 = Dialogue on the Evolution of Ancient Writing�$#)6��72009

� http://zdic.net/

Appendix - Sources and further reading

18

Page

‘ID’ographs is a publication of ARTSpring, a China-based curatorial hub that brings arts practitioners together with organizations that are searching for new ways of carrying out their activities and connecting with people. For more information about ARTSpring programs and publications please visit the website www.art-spring.org.

‘ID’ographs was designed as part of an ongoing workshop series held with a group of university and high-school students in Shanghai. The content and structure of the workshop program is in continual development. Suggestions, submissions, inquiries and collaborations are invited. Please visit www.art-spring.org for updates and to get in touch.

This guide is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

Author: George Kaye

Acknowledgments:Greg Baines, Art+ CoopJennifer Tang, Art+ CoopLucinda Holmes, Western International School of ShanghaiElke Martini, Elke Martini DesignsZoe Wu, ArtistJianwei Fong, Artist

About

19

"ID"ographs

Documents

Transcript of "ID"ographs