Bleeding/Thickness? Japanese paper qualities

May 15, 2013 2:01 AM

Could you translate this graph from Japanese to English for me? It's an overview of different paper types used for calligraphy - but I can't read... This is what google translate got me for the middle part.
posted by lenehan to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

The top to bottom scale is from "bleeds a lot" to "doesn't bleed". I'm not sure what exactly the left to right scale is, but it looks like from not rough to very rough (the word is "kasure", which I hadn't seen before). The names in the middle are all kind of metaphors or nicknames (like "white snow" or "sky color"), so I'm not sure how much translations would help you - the non-literal Google translations look more or less OK.
posted by 23 at 2:34 AM on May 15, 2013

Best answer: My understanding of kasure is that it describes the way a stroke breaks up at the end, as you're lifting the brush off of the paper. I'm not aware of an equivalent word in English, though there may be one. So, across the top, papers have increasing kasure, from left to right, and on the left, they bleed more from bottom to top. I believe the "names" in blue on the chart are different types of paper. So, the paper called "Sesshu" at the upper right, both bleeds heavily (ink spreads through the paper in a desirable way), and breaks up a lot (has that magical quality that the Japanese like so much, but is difficult to translate in to English). The paper at bottom left, "Katsugi", doesn't bleed very much, and has minimal "break-uppiness". Hopefully someone who knows about calligraphy will stop by and help with this funky word that I can't describe.
posted by segatakai at 3:36 AM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

I guess that first sentence should end: "...as you're lifting the brush off of the paper, or as the brush runs out of ink."
Oh, yeah. By the way, I might be wrong.
posted by segatakai at 4:59 AM on May 15, 2013

the more I think about it, the more I think the thing about lifting the brush is just bogus. I think it's as the ink runs out. sorry.
carry on.
posted by segatakai at 6:14 AM on May 15, 2013

Best answer: I found a source that explains what kasure is. It's about fountain pens, but close enough; the basic idea is:

かすれ、とは、ペン先から出たインキが紙に乗らなかったり（広義のかすれ）や、点線のような描線となって紙へのインキ出が極端に少ないこと（狭義のかすれ）を言います。

"Kasure" is, generally speaking, when the ink doesn't transfer from the tip of the pen on to the paper, or, more specifically, when the pen begins to write like a dotted line and essentially no ink is going from the pen on to the paper.

In the case of fountain pens this is a bad thing.

The top-right paper (very bleedy, very... scratchy?) appears to be named for this guy.
posted by 23 at 7:15 AM on May 15, 2013

Hi. Me again.
I think these two Google Image searches are pretty informative. There's a lot of junk, too - especially in the kasure search, but I think they do a decent job of showing the difference between the two terms.

Kasure

Nijimi
posted by segatakai at 12:12 AM on May 16, 2013

Response by poster: Thank you so much for your dedication in solving this inky mystery (inky and kinky could be a good motto-party). I put the information as I understand it right now back into the graph. Would you agree?
posted by lenehan at 5:41 AM on May 16, 2013

I think you've got the bleeding gradation backwards. The paper bleeds less as it descends.
posted by misozaki at 4:20 PM on May 16, 2013

Yes, indeed, the bleeding is backwards. Specifically, the steps are, across the top, then from the top down:

Doesn't Break / "Difficult to Break Up" (Doesn't Break Up Much) / Breaks Up A Little / Breaks Up / Breaks Up A Lot

Bleeds A Lot
Bleeds
Bleeds a Little
"Difficult to Bleed" (Doesn't Bleed Much)
Doesn't Bleed
posted by segatakai at 6:21 PM on May 16, 2013