Quiet Night Thoughts: the first verse
Quiet Night Thoughts: the first verse is the introductory phase of my developing series of PictureWords - an visual exploration of the Chinese writing system, which dates from more than 3,500 years ago. The form has evolved yet retained its ancient core, with a combination of phonetic, ideographic, logographic in function, making it one of the longest continuously used writing system in the world. My returning passion to Chinese poetry is the main inspiration in PictureWords. I started with the first sentense of a poem by Li Bai (701-762 AD), one of the most celebrated poets in China. His work has been known, translated into many languages and admired world-wide.
In the poem Quiet Night Thoughts I used (and pictured) the first verse “床前明月光 Abed, I see a silver light”. As the Chinese written words have evolved into more complex systems, sometimes completely broken from its original forms, I try to work on the words that pick up rudimentary elements, with pictograms and phonetic sounds. I have always this undercurrent of desire and curiosity to learn how pictures, language and its coherent meaning work and interact as a form communication. There are many versions of English translation of this poem. I have picked two, one is my favorite version translated by Xu Hanchong. The other version is by Ezra Pound.
A Tranquil Night (Jing Ye Si)
Abed, I see a silver light
I wonder if it's frost aground
Looking up, I find the moon bright
Bowing, in homsickness I'm drowned
(Tr. by Xu Hanchong, Chinese)
Calm Night Thought
The moon light is on the floor luminous
I thought it was frost, it was so white
Holding up head I look at mountian moon
lowering head think of old home
(Tr. by Ezra Pound)
A work with 5 photographs
17x22 inch, Archival pigment print, in edition of 5
