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bean-market-art · 24 days ago

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梅が香を...

This is my end of an art trade with @kalolasfantasyworld! Working on this was an absolute BLAST (as you can tell from the five page Google Doc of explanations for all the stuff I did not need to add lmao) and I had so much fun with it! Thank you for doing the art trade with me Lola :D

Full explanation of history and themes below:

Historical Overview

The Edo period (1600-1867) is pretty prominent in modern culture, and is often romanticized as one of THE periods of Japanese cultural significance. Hinokuni (Land of the Sun) in Black Clover is based off of Edo-period Japan, or at least the late Muromachi pd.

You might know this as a time of samurai, ninja, etc. However, a fair amount of that is completely wrong. Edo period society was carefully structured to maintain peace. There was no war, and therefore virtually no work to be done for warriors – save a few rebellions, samurai were basically unemployed. However, since all of the power was in the hands of the military, they remained at the top of the rigid hierarchy established by the shogunate. This ended up putting the samurai in a strange situation: they grew more and more financially destitute, but still kept their high status as society slowly broke down over 200 years.

In the mid 1700s, however, Japan was the most urbanized country in the world. Woodblock printing meant that media became available to everyone for a much lower cost than it would if everything was an individually commissioned drawing. “Modern” consumer pop culture arrived and evolved in Japan much earlier than other places, and part of pop culture was the ukiyo-e.

What is ukiyo-e?

Have you ever wanted to see a hand drawn and carefully reproduced woodblock print of a woman having sex with an octopus? I imagine you don’t, but we’re on Tumblr, so. You can’t be sure.

Anyway, If you know The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the glorious and quintessential piece of Japanese art, that was done by Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai, the mad lad, also printed women fucking octopodes. Both of these things are (according to the people of the time) a depiction of the “Floating World,” ukiyo. The Floating World refers to the beautiful, fleeting, and hedonistic red-light district of Edo (now Tokyo) which was literally a man-made sex and theatre island. Pictures of the Floating World are usually the traditional Japanese woodblock print, and can be anything from beautiful flowers to famous actors to scenic views to pictures of lovers, to… well, porn. A lot of porn.

However, this particular drawing is (thankfully) based off of Lovers Walking in the Snow (Crow and Heron), a wood-block print that dates to around 1770.

The long sleeves on the woman is one of the signs of the mid-Edo period, as those were in fashion at the time.

According to the Met, “Of all ukiyo-e prints of lovers, this one creates the most romantic and melancholic mood. Harunobu emphasizes the intimacy of two lovers strolling in the snow, even suggesting perhaps a michiyuki, a path to a love suicide.” The love suicide or double suicide was considered one of the most romantic things lovers could do at the time…. which… you know, that’s cool for them, but I wanted to thematically move away from that for this one, so I switched the crow to a crane 😭 This only partially solved the problem but I swear they’re not going to kill themselves guys I love Nozelena and there are other reasons I picked this print, please –

Crow and Heron was created by Suzuki Harunobu, who invented the nishiki-e, or multicolored woodblock print. Prints prior to his innovation were limited to two or three colors, but Harunobu’s wealthy commissioners gave him enough money and time to carve up to twelve individual wood blocks to print many different colors onto one sheet of paper.

He is also famously known for fucking hating kabuki performers, so sorry, Harunobu, but I’m putting you in here with mentions of kabuki actors lmao. shoutout to Wikipedia for Harunobu facts please don’t kill me hbomberguy im just a little man with dreams

Clothes

I want to preface this by saying that these clothes are NOT COMPLETELY HISTORICALLY ACCURATE. With that being said, let’s get into the Themes :]

Helena, our Crane, is wearing clothing that’s pretty similar to the woman in Crow and Heron, but she’s also wearing an auspicious red uchikake, or over-robe. Uchikake are only really used in wedding kimono in modern times, but they were frequently worn in everyday life by the wives of samurai-class nobles during the late Muromachi (1336-1573) and Edo periods. Consisting of a patterned silk robe left open over her white kimono with the fashionable long sleeves of the time, she’s hopefully a little more warm in the snow!

Image courtesy of the Met. Uchikake depicting scenes from the Tale of Ise

Plum blossoms are the flower of the month for February, and make up at least ten entries in the Kokinshu, a famous seasonal poem anthology. These white blossoms are often elegantly 'confused' with snow on the branches of the plum trees, and are a sure sign of early spring.

Given that this drawing is being posted around the time that these poems were likely written back in the 900s, I thought it would be fitting to put Helena in plum blossoms. You can also see faded plum blossoms in two corners of the piece. Cranes (tsuru) are associated with the same bright red that Helena’s almost always drawn in. They signify long life, purity, good luck, and fidelity. Overall, cranes have the same general happy connotations that I think of whenever I think of Helena, and they have the same colors -- they're perfect for each other!

You can see a version of Helena’s outfit with the hood in the ukiyo-e below, also done by Harunobu.

Nozel is styled as a daimyo or regional warlord of the time. I wanted initially to put him in a kataginu kamishimo, which you can see below, but the haori (jacket) and hakama (pants) that he’s wearing are also appropriate.

Dressing him down and leaving his hair down saved me from having to draw his stupid braid hopefully gives the piece a more intimate feeling.

If Nozel was a daimyo of the time period, he’d only see Helena a few months out of the year. The Tokugawa shogunate used a system called sankin koutai, or alternate attendance, to prevent the regional warlords from rising up and trying to usurp their rule. This system meant that the wives and children of the daimyo were forced to live in the capitol, and the daimyo could come to Edo once or twice a year to see them. The shogun having everyone’s wife and kids readily accessible to him at all times was… a pretty effective deterrent from treason, so Nozelena wouldn’t get to see each other often. Any time they would spend together would be very precious, and I hope I've depicted that feeling.

Nozel’s haori hakama is not very traditional (usually it would be black with gold thread for the kamon, or family crest stitched onto the shoulders of the haori. You’ll see that where there’s meant to be a family crest, I’ve put the Silva cross), but there’s a reason for that. The EEO store New Year had a Nozel in a haori hakama that’s pretty close to the colors of the aosagi, or grey heron, and that gave me an idea.

Grey herons carry connotations with mystery and death, which fits well for a man who has a secret about death that he can’t reveal to anyone or risk killing them too. Herons are also featured in an incredible kabuki performance called Sagi Musume. This dance was famously done by onnagata Bando Tamasaburo (link here to watch! He’s a Living National Treasure: I can’t recommend it enough). It’s tragic, but beautiful.

Crows and herons are both somewhat related to death, which is likely part of the reason that it’s intimated that the two lovers in Harunobu’s piece are walking to commit a double suicide. However, changing one of the birds in the metaphor to a crane lightens up the metaphor and makes it much more hopeful, which I associate with this ship. As spring comes in and the white snow melts away to reveal budding plum blossoms, so too does a little sun shine on the grey heron, trapped in his secret and closed off from the world.

Or something like that. It’s pretty pretentious, but I enjoyed thinking about this relationship and conceptualizing the metaphors I wanted to use for this drawing.

Ai ai Gasa

The Met writes about Harunobu’s piece: “The couple walk together in the quietly falling snow, in what is known as an ai ai gasa pose, literally, the sharing of an umbrella and love.” I kept this pose for Nozel and Helena – I knew I wanted something to do with a paper umbrella, since our girl has paper magic. In the starting sketches, he was holding the umbrella over her head while she reached for koi in the river (koi in Japanese is a homophone for love), but this version of the pose is both more historically aligned and cuter in my opinion.

The umbrella actually exists.

This is a wagasa – a Japanese umbrella – made by Matsuda Wagasa in Kanazawa. It has Helena’s signature red as well as a Hangetsu/half moon pattern. Kanazawa umbrellas are different from any other wagasa makers in the country, and a dying craft. Matsuda is the only store left that still makes Kanazawa-style wagasa. I know no one on this site really has any money, but if you want to buy a piece of long-lasting, living art, please consider supporting them.

The Poem

The writing that you see in the corner is a famous poem from the Kokinshu. However you ask me, “Alex. This is the Edo period. That’s the 1700s. This poem was from the 890s. The EIGHT. NINETIES. Why the hell are you using poetry in Classical Japanese? No one from the Edo period could understand something that was written 800 years ago at the time.” And to that I say: that’s a very logical conclusion! However, you are WRONG, because there’s nothing LOGICAL about ELEGANT, AESTHETIC PERFECTION!!!

Classical Japanese (theoretically the Japanese used from around 900 to 1100) was used well into the Meiji period (1868-1912) whenever someone wanted to sound fancy or official. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of poems about plum blossoms and spring, but I picked this one for a reason. Harunobu often included poems in his work to poke light fun at them, but the inclusion of this poem in my drawing was perfectly serious. I’ll leave you with it to close out the explanation of this drawing. I hope seeing this piece of art has given you a happy and soft feeling, even if it’s only brief – I love Helena, I love this ship a lot, and I appreciate how hard Lola has worked to understand Nozel’s character and create an OC that plays well with him. I know only a few people who have put in the time and effort to meet Nozel where he’s at instead of trying to make him into something he isn’t. I imagine that for a man who has experienced so much death and made so many mistakes in his life, Nozel’s feelings for Helena are somewhat like this poem.

梅が香を袖にうつしてとどめてば春は過ぐとも形見ならまし

mume ga ka wo/sode ni utsushite/todometeba/haru wa sugutomo/katami naramashi

If only the plums' scent/would shift to my sleeves and/stay there, then/even when spring is past and gone/a keepsake it would be...

#black clover #black clover fanart #nozel silva #nozel black clover #black clover oc #bc oc #helena drazel

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