This scroll was two parts exciting and at least one part terrifying. I wanted to try something that looked clearly Chinese from the recipient’s period. There were a ton of beautiful Song Dynasty scrolls to choose from, but Landscape with Great Pine by Ma Lin was the best balance of ‘artwork I think I can reasonably replicate’ and ‘leaves room for the script’.

This kind of art is the opposite of the kind I’m good at (geometric). This art is beautiful chaos to me. This art required a pencil draft before inking. Somehow I managed to put lines in the right places and not too many places, which would have completely ruined the effect with the micron pen. Dry brushing the foliage was terrifying. With each dab I was afraid I’d put too much paint on the brush and there would be a splotch, that I wasn’t being “chaotic” enough in their placement, or that I should have used a different technique with the black. That little moon/sun absolutely had to stay though and the script would just have to go around it.

For this scroll, my trusty Chancery Italic hand would have clashed horribly, so I started looking around for alternatives, which led me to a group called The Eastern Gate, where I stumbled across a post indicating that the recipient’s persona was from the Han Dynasty instead. There I found Lord Minamoto no Hideaki of Lochac who was able and, more importantly, willing to translate the words from English to Chinese. I sent him a progress picture of the scroll so he could see what we were working with in terms of the shape of the writable area and gave him leave to do whatever was needed to make the words make sense rather than attempting a literal translation. Not only did he deliver what was asked but he included documentation, notes explaining choices, and made the back to English translation better overall.

Original English Text

For lending their voice and talents to the tournament and court, Gaia, Stellar Princess of Northshield, is pleased to award Yin Yun the Princess Cypher. Done this second day of April, 2022 at Princess Sleeve, Anno Societatus 56.

Literary Chinese Text

(written in Traditional and formatted so it runs right-to-left, top-to-bottom, as it is done in historical documents)

An explanation on the text

It is based on a decree from Empress Wu conferring a title on a court official, so Tang dynasty rather than Eastern Han. This particular anachronism is due to the fact that I could not find an Eastern Han text to use as the “base” within the available time.

There isn’t a word-for-word translation of what you wanted to say in the text. So here is a literal translation of the literary Chinese text:

Gaia, Stellar Princess of Northshield

Decrees that

Yin Yun is of resonant and strong voice, and has virtue and wisdom both. The wins and losses of the list field (the word I’ve used is 校场, aka “drill field”,  as European-style tournaments aren’t really a thing in pre-1600 CE China) are reported by him. The court’s progress (May not be strictly true, but I’m trying to convey the “lending his talents to the court) is aided by his talents, which benefit many. It would be appropriate to award him the Princess’ Cypher as a token of distinction.

Anno Societatis 56

Second of April, in the year 2022

You can see why I preferred the secondary English translation. After a bit of clarification on the gender references where I learned that the literal translation of the script effectively just said “the recipient” but that sounds super awkward, this is what I asked the heralds to read in court:

Gaia, Stellar Princess of Northshield Decrees that Yin Yun is of resonant and strong voice, and has virtue and wisdom both. The wins and losses of the list field ¹ are reported by the recipient [them]. The court’s progress ² is aided by the recipient’s [their] talents, which benefit many. It would be appropriate to award the recipient [them] the Princess’ Cypher as a token of distinction. Anno Societatis 56 Second of April, in the year 2022

Applying the script with a .01 micron pen was a special kind of terror. Not knowing Chinese, I had to get the lines exactly right to avoid possibly changing the meaning of the word if a stroke slipped in the wrong direction. To accomplish it, I printed off a copy in overly large size so I could easily see each character’s construction, and I also printed off a copy in scroll size and put it on the light table so I could control the overall size and placement of the script.

I have a vintage brass Chinese chop that my mom picked up at an antique shop some years ago. I haven’t found out who it belonged to yet, but know enough not to use it. It would be like signing your painting with someone else’s name. It makes an excellent paper weight though as I work on scrolls.

Materials: Printer, light table, 8″x8″ pergamenata, ruler, pencil, eraser, circles template, micron pen, gouache, gold paint