Scroll calligraphy translation, help please!

[PinyinHarry]

Hello everyone,

 

I have just purchased an old Japanese scroll, which is in Nanga style and is apparantly by artist Kushiro Unzen. It is very beautiful and I am in love with it! And I was really wondering if any of you kind people here can help me to translate the calligraphy?

 

I am not interested in the chop mark, but I would really love to know what is written on the front of the sroll, because I already hung it in my dining room and I would love to know what it is saying when I look there!, and the writing that is on the reverse side of the scroll at the top is interesting too.

 

Photo 1-3 is the writing on the back, and photo 4-6 is the calligraphy on the front. The painting is of mountains, trees, crane birds and the sun, so I imagine it may have something to do with longevity.

 

If anyone can help I will be so grateful!

 

Kind regards to all!

 

[scottt]

1. 蓬萊山    雲泉   ( 蓬莱山    云泉)
2 .蓬萊山
3.  雲泉
4. ...  雲泉 散人 (Last  4 characters)
5   蓬萊仙境 ... (First 4 characters)
6 ... 雲泉散人   (Last  4 characters)
----------------------------------
Above, the keywords are
 蓬萊山...   (蓬莱山) where many 仙人  stay  
 雲泉...        雲 (云) means clouds,  泉 means fountain
                   Here, used as the painter's palname  (Refer to the 4th photos)    

[PinyinHarry]

Hi Scottt, thank you so much for your reply, I ran the characters you isolated through Google translate and it came up with 'Penglai Mountain Cloud Springs' for the first three photos (The writing on the back), and then 'Penglai fairyland springs scattered clouds' for the characters on the front. I looked up Penglai Mountain on Wikipedia and apparantly Penglai is a 'legendary land of Chinese mythology'. According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the mountain is said to be on an island in the eastern end of Bohai Sea, along with four other islands where the immortals lived, called Fāngzhàng (方丈), Yíngzhōu (瀛州), Dàiyú (岱輿), and Yuánjiāo (員嬌).

 

Would this make sense to you? As a translation?

 

It certainly makes sense as far as the content of the painting. And apparantly, Nanga school painters all shared an admiration for traditional Chinese culture, and usually their paintings depict Chinese landscapes or similar subjects. So again, it would make sense that the artist chose to paint 'Penglai Mountain', as this is a Chinese mythological story/place.

[scottt]

Mountain Penglai is the most famous one among those fairyland.

Those ancient Chinese people live in the land, thus they have lots imagination about the sea and Mountains on the sea. Thus, each painter can have his own expression to the Mountain Penglai.

As for the 'Mt. Yuánjiāo', it should be 員嶠  instead of 員嬌.

Both 嶠 and 嬌 has the same sound, but with different tone.

Also, the different left side 山 (Mountain) and 女 (Girl) already classified them into different categories.

 

As for the 'Penglai Mountain Cloud Springs',

I prefer to explain as "Penglai Mountain" by Mr. Cloud- Springs.

 

Those immortals live in the high mountains.

And these mountain are hiding behind the clouds.

The combination of the people (人) and the mountains (山) makes the character (仙) which means fairly or immortals.

I unexpected found few immortals at the bottom right corner on the photo "Penglai Island"  (as the painting of Mount_Penglai in WIKI

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Penglai

  Have fun !