Japanese Tattoo Symbolism

[Eppy]

Preparing to get a half sleeve and half chest of a koi and a koi transforming into a dragon.

During my research though I found an interview with a traditional Japanese tattooist that said certain combinations of animals and flowers that are regularly done are not truly Japanese in style.

Apparently animals are meant to be combined with specific flowers based on the seasons.

I cannot find any more specific information about this anywhere, anyone know anything?

I'm also unsure about the meanings of the different colors of koi, I think a black koi represents a first born son (which I am) so I was going to go with that but does anyone know anymore? Or is the color choice purely aesthetic.
The only information I could find relating to the colors of Koi is here:

Kodomo no hi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not sure if it is relevant to tattoos though.

Thanks in advance.

[bluntmonkey]

The following stolen from Koi Fish Tattoos - LoveToKnow Tattoos


There are fourteen classifications that koi fish can be broken down into, separated by color and markings.

Kohaku. These are the most common type of koi, white with red markings.
Taisho Sanke. These are white koi with red and black markings.
Showa. These koi have red and white markings on a black background.
Bekko. Bekko can be red, white, or yellow, but will have black markings.
Utsurimono. These koi are similar to Bekko, but are actually the opposite, being black with red, white, or yellow markings.
Asagi. These koi was blue/grey and have red markings on their sides, fins, and bellies.
Shusui. Similar to the Asagi, but these koi was doitsu koi, meaning that they have scales only along their dorsal and lateral lines.
Koromo. Koromo koi are named for the pattern they have - "robed." They are normally white, and then the pattern is outlined in a darker color, sometimes blue, black, or purple.
Kawarimono. This is a catch-all name, including all koi that are non-metallic.
Hikarimono. Koi that are hikarimono are a metallic, but of a single color only.
Hikari-Utsurimono. These koi are metallic, but with the marking of a Utsurimono.
Hikarimoyo-Mono. These koi are also metallic, but they have more than one color and do not fall into the Utsurimono and Showa patterns.
Tacho. Tacho are named after the national bird of Japan and, like the crane they are named for, they have a single red spot on the their foreheads.
Kinginrin. Any koi with more than 20 sparkling scales.
Meanings and Symbolism Behind Koi Fish Tattoos
Koi are considered a manly symbol, especially after it was appropriated by the Boys' Day Festival in Japan. According to legend, the koi climb the waterfall bravely, and if they are caught, they face their death on the cutting board bravely, like samuri. Other Japanese meanings include perseverance and strength.

In China, it is believed that if the koi succeeded in climbing to "Dragon Gate" on the Yellow River, the koi will be transformed into dragons. Because of the Chinese legend, koi are considered a symbol of advancement and aspiration.

When used in tattoos, especially with running water, the koi is meant to symbolize courage and the ability to attain goals and to overcome life's difficulties. When the koi in the tattoo is shown swimming upstream, it can be used to mean that the tattooee is still struggling with their problem, whereas a koi swimming downstream implies that the tattooee has already overcome their difficulty. In other cases, the koi swimming downstream can represent the season of fall, and the koi swimming upstream can represent the spring.

Ideas for Koi Fish Tattoos
Like any other tattoo you may want to get, planning is important!

Good luck in your search hope some of this info helps. google jap tatt flowers
and traditional design you will find loads of links as well. Post a pic when you get the ink.
B

[bluntmonkey]

Something on flower meanings:


This first information is from the book Fantasies & Flowers: Origami in Fabric for Quitters by Kumiko Sudo. It actually is talking about the Japanese art of ikebana, or flower arranging. In Japan each month is celebrated by different flowers, allowing each ikebana piece to suggest the season in which it was created. One of the objectives of ikebana is to make a statement so the symbolism of certain flowers becomes important, both to inspire the maker and enrich the experience of the observer. These same symbols could be incorporated into a temari design alone with a note explaining the symbolism.

January: Pine. Pine represents eternal life, suggesting tranquillity, faithfulness, and integrity. Pine with it's twin needles is also used in weddings to symbolize long life, however if one of the needles dies, so does the other. Pine and rose used together represent the Japanese love of contrast or the attraction that opposites have for each other , the traditional concept of yin and yang. Pine is masculine, bold, vital. The rose is feminine, colorful, fragile representing love, beauty and sentiment.

February: Plum. Good fortune.

March: Peach and Pear. Peach blossoms represent life and also the feminine qualities of gentleness and mildness.

April: Cherry. The cherry blossom is the national flower of Japan symbolizing loyalty and filial love. They are liken to the samurai, who spends his life preparing for the battle in which he is killed.

May: Azalea, peony and wisteria. Azalea symbolizes family devotion because the blossoms lie very close to the parent stem. Peony: happiness, prosperity, love and affection. Climbing vines such as wisteria, sweet peas, ivy, clematis and morning glory all indicate affection.

June: Iris. Strength, vitality, boldness, power and eloquence. Often a choice for one of Japan's national festivals Boy's Day on May 5.

July: Morning glory. Affection.

August: Lotus. Life, immortality, meditation. Often used at funerals.

September: The 7 grasses.

October: Chrysanthemum. Strength, courage and dignity. Used to provide encouragement to one who struggles.

November: Maple.

December: Camellia.

B

[bluntmonkey]

More on the subject:

A great link for more info:
JAPAN ECHO - THE LONG SHADOW OF WORLD WAR II Vol. 32, No. 5 - EDO-PERIOD PAINTING AND THE "LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS"
I am including a short copy paste from this site check it out for yourself some good info.

EDO-PERIOD PAINTING AND THE "LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS"

The "language of flowers" is a firmly established part of contemporary Japanese culture and customs. A red rose expresses undying love; the fragrant sweet pea is presented to graduating students or others moving on to a new stage in life. In fact, the practice of assigning special meanings to flowers on the basis of their botanical characteristics can be found around the world, and most people would probably agree that the flower symbolism with which the Japanese are most familiar today is actually Western in origin.

The closer one investigates, the more subtle and complex such flower symbolism appears. Multiple meanings may be associated with a single flower, such as the lily. On the basis of its role in New Testament allegories, the lily is thought to represent purity, virginity, innocence, and majesty. However, in the language of flowers it is also said to convey the message "You can’t fool me."

Flower symbolism originates in a wide variety of sources—including folktales, fairy tales, legends, literature, and religious tradition—spanning different countries, regions, and ethnic groups. In fact, even in a single locale, the meaning of a flower may change over time. This being the case, we can assume that many early flower meanings and associations have been lost to us with the passage of time. Bearing this in mind, let us begin to explore Japan’s tradition of flower symbolism.

SYMBOLISM IN CHINESE BIRD-AND-FLOWER PAINTING

What is the nature of Japan’s traditional language of flowers, and in what forms was it expressed? In the following, I would like to examine aspects of this language as seen in the bird-and-flower painting of the Edo period (1603–1868), focusing particularly on cherry-blossom painting.

As is widely known, the flowering cherries, or sakura, that bloom in the spring have been dear to the hearts of the Japanese people and the subject of numerous Japanese literary works—especially poetry—from the ancient period on. However, with the rise of natural history studies in the eighteenth century, a more objective interest in and understanding of plants and other natural objects grew rapidly among the Japanese and influenced their perception of these flowers. Yet while the art of the period testifies to this new impulse to grasp things with scientific precision, it also bears witness to the Edo artist’s playful approach to traditional symbolism and a love of parody predicated on classical knowledge and learning.

In China, however, such a category has existed since ancient times. The category is that of bird-and-flower pictures—huaniaohua in Chinese; kachôga in Japanese—which, despite the name, is not limited to birds and flowers but includes also trees, grasses, fruits, and vegetables, as well as various animals, insects, fish, and shellfish (shrimp and crabs, for example). Within this category, moreover, can be found a variety of standard combinations, including "pine and crane," "deer and oak," "tiger and bamboo," "monkey and bee," and even "cat and peony" or "cat and butterfly."

Any picture that depicts such subject matter falls within the genre of kachôga, whatever the style or medium, be it a realistic, meticulously detailed and brightly pigmented work or a minimalist monochrome ink painting. Indeed, kachôga covers not only painting but also crafts ornamented with pictorial designs of plants and animals. In fact, even pictures executed from a scientific vantage point to illustrate natural histories can be placed in this genre—as can depictions of creatures outside the natural realm. In the East Asian tradition, such fantastic animals as the dragon, the kirin (sometimes translated as unicorn), and the phoenix are subsumed under the general category of kachô, or birds and flowers, and treated no differently from real animals. In other words, products of the human imagination are also legitimate motifs for bird-and-flower painting.*

Notwithstanding this breadth, however, there are definite conventions governing the depiction and meaning of motifs in the traditional bird-and-flower painting that originated in China and took root in Japan. Most of these center on the symbolic representation of good fortune (jixiang; Japanese kisshô) in its various manifestations. For example, the pine, which is widely distributed throughout East Asia, symbolizes longevity because it is a long-lived tree that keeps its green foliage all year long. The peony, known as "the king of flowers" in China, is a symbol of wealth. In addition, there are standard combinations of motifs. For example, paintings may also include the motif of "cat and butterfly." The reason for this is that the words for cat, mao, and butterfly, die, combined are homophonous with the classical Chinese compound maodie, which signifies longevity. Thus, the combination of these motifs symbolizes the wish for a household to enjoy prosperity and continue in perpetuity. Similarly, the pairing of oak (bai) and deer (lu) occurs because the word combination is homophonous with a compound that indicates an increase in compensation for one’s work (bailu; byakuroku), while "bee (feng) and monkey (hou)" connotes promotion to a high position (fenghou; hôkô). All of these are auspicious motifs frequently found in "good luck paintings" (jixianghua; kisshôga).

What this means is that in China and Japan, unlike in the West, the symbolic meaning of flowers and animals may not derive from the qualities or associations of the subject itself. Particularly where two or more subjects are found in combination, the viewer automatically assumes a reference to some word associated with good fortune, so that appreciating the work means to some extent "reading" it as a word or words on the basis of the names of the motifs, almost like solving a puzzle.†

Nonetheless, even these traditional East Asian motifs vary in their meaning according to the country, region, and era in which they appear.

For example, in Japan today, shô-chiku-bai, or pine, bamboo, and plum (song-ju-mei in Chinese), would top almost anyone’s list of auspicious plant assortments. In China, these have traditionally been honored as the Three Friends of Winter, or suihan sanyou (Japanese saikan san’yû), for their ability to flourish under harsh conditions, and have been used to represent the virtues of the ideal person (particularly the scholar-gentleman): endurance and longevity, as symbolized by the evergreen pine; perseverance and resilience, as seen in the straight-growing but flexible bamboo; and vitality and purity of spirit, as embodied in the plum that puts forth its lovely and fragrant blossoms even before spring has arrived. Transmitted from China to Japan in the Nara period (710–94), this triad initially retained its original meaning and intent, but over time, the purpose and symbolism changed. Gradually, the Japanese embraced shô-chiku-bai as a congratulatory symbol for practically all auspicious occasions. In time it emerged as a commonplace ornamental motif for pottery and utensils, architecture, and so forth, and at some point, it became a standard motif for the transom work commonly seen in Japanese domestic architecture. In the last context, however, it has taken on a meaning distinct from the original symbolism: the pine represents the head of the household and the virtue of dignity; the plum, the wife and the quality of grace; and the bamboo, the children and the attributes of growth and strength of character. Combined, they now signify the wish for domestic peace, happiness, health, and safety.

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POETRY MEETS NATURAL HISTORY

Around the middle of the eighteenth century, a rather unusual group of painters appeared on the Kyoto art scene. These were the artists of the Mikuma school, who painted nothing but cherry trees and cherry blossoms. Founded by Mikuma Shikô (1730–94), the school endured for slightly over 60 years, consisting of only four painters: Mikuma Shikô, his sister Rokô (?–c. 1810), his student Hirose Kain (1772?–1849?), and Rokô’s female student, Oda Shitsushitsu (1779–1832). Because Kain and Shitsushitsu had no students of their own, the school died out quickly and was all but forgotten by art history until fairly recently.* However, the Mikuma school (a name which I gave it myself about five years ago, and which has since taken hold) was quite well known when it was active, during the middle of the Edo period. The famed writer Ôta Nanpo (1749–1823) notes in volume 36 of his Ichiwa ichigen (One Discourse, One Word) that their painting was referred to as sakura-ga (cherry-blossom painting), and he writes the following with regard to Shikô.



One of Mikuma Shikô’s closest friends was a famous poet and writer by the name of Ban Kôkei (1733–1806). Kôkei wrote as follows:

Shikô came to a realization at one point: "Pictures of things one has never seen, such as dragons, tigers, lions, and elephants, delight the eye for a brief moment, but they offer no benefit to the world," he said. "I have it! I will paint sakura, which can be found only in Japan and in no other country. Painting these will be my noble undertaking as a citizen of this country."*

What this tells us, first of all, is that Shikô decided to become a painter of flowering cherry trees because he firmly believed that they were unique to Japan. Today we know that he was quite mistaken; some varieties of flowering cherry are also native to the Chinese interior. It seems that in the course of his detailed study of the tree, Shikô picked up some erroneous information. In fact, this error in the transmission of botanical knowledge is an issue that extends far beyond Shikô himself.

In the course of his studies of cherry trees, Shikô visited many locales, and one product of these journeys was the travel book Yoshino shiori (Guide to Yoshino). The book introduces the landmarks and historical sites of Mount Yoshino in Yamato (modern-day Nara Prefecture)—an area famous for its cherry blossoms—as well as famous cherry trees to be found in those places. In the book’s introduction, Shikô acknowledges his debt to the writings of Kaibara Ekken (also known as Ekiken; 1630–1714), a scholar esteemed through the middle and late Edo period as the author of Japan’s first genuine natural history compendium, Yamato honzô (Natural History of Japan). Ekken had also written a book on various grasses, trees, and flowers titled Kafu (Encyclopedia of Flowers). Shikô doubtless had great respect for Ekken and in all likelihood kept his works nearby for reference purposes when writing his own books. Ekken’s Kafu contains a critical passage concerning flowering cherries, which reads as follows:

Since ancient times, sakura have been the most admired of all flowers. . . . According to the poetry of the Chinese Wen xuan [Selections of Refined Literature] the wild cherry [shanying; Japanese yama-zakura] is a plant that bears fruit and whose flowers are bright red, like fire. Therefore, this is not the sakura found in Japan. Thus, Chinese writings give no indication of the existence of a flower like Japan’s sakura. I once asked a Chinese man in Nagasaki about sakura, and this person also answered, "They are not found in China." It is said they are found in Korea, however.

In other words, Ekken asserts that the wild cherry (shan- ying) found in classical Chinese verse is not the Japanese sakura, and he was able to confirm with someone from China that the sakura did not exist in China. Interestingly, the passage goes on to suggest that the Japanese flowering cherry does exist on the Korean Peninsula, but that information, for whatever reason, was completely ignored in subsequent years. Saitô Shôji, noting it is impossible to find any reference to the sakura as unique to Japan prior to that time, concludes that this passage from Ekken’s work had a major impact on Japanese attitudes toward the flower.



Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that Mikuma Shikô’s ideas regarding cherry trees constituted a misunderstanding born from the "scientific" perception of the flowering cherry as a uniquely Japanese flower (ultimately traceable to Kaibara Ekken but developed during Shikô’s time), intersecting with the nationalist ideology of a group of nativist scholars active during the same era. In other words, the sakura-ga of the Mikuma school was a kind of bird-and-flower painting informed simultaneously by the scientific spirit of direct observation and by beliefs and ideologies diametrically opposed to scientific empiricism.

Another element representing the unscientific side of the Mikuma school is Shikô’s selection of 36 varieties to represent the entire range of sakura-ga. Today the best-known variety of flowering cherry tree is the somei yoshino. (The famous cherry trees along the tidal basin in Washington DC are mostly of this type.) However, there are actually a great many other varieties as well. It seems that in Japan there were originally three basic species, called yama-zakura, higan-zakura, and Ôshima-zakura. From these, new varieties were born through cross-breeding and mutation, and horticulture created various garden varieties as well; today there are said to be more than 350 types of sakura. Moreover, of these, 250–60 were already known in the period around 1780–1840, when the Mikuma school was active. Why, then, did Shikô choose 36 varieties?

The source of this seemingly arbitrary number 36 is in fact poetic tradition and a play on words. The characters that signify "a selection of flowers" are read kasen in Japanese, which is homophonous with another word meaning "immortal poet." Fujiwara no Kintô (966–1041) used the word kasen in the title of his famous anthology Sanjûrokkasen (The 36 Poetic Geniuses), and subsequently these 36 poets became a common theme of Japanese painting. By extension, kasen was also used to refer to a form of linked verse, or renga, consisting of 36 verses. To put it simply, Shikô’s "36 selected flowers" (sanjûrokkasen) was a pun on the well-known theme of 36 immortal poets.

However, the connection does not stop there. During medieval times, members of the imperial court customarily held renga-composing parties under the cherry trees, and such was the association between the poetry and the cherry blossoms that the court came to refer to its most accomplished renga poets as hana no moto, literally, "under the [cherry] blossoms." As this indicates, in medieval times waka poetry and cherry blossoms were inextricably associated with one another in the minds of the Japanese, and Mikuma Shikô’s choice of 36 varieties suggests that the association survived through the Edo period.

RECOVERING THE MEANING OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS

Mikuma Shikô’s sister Rokô carried on the tradition of sanjûrokkasen, as did Shikô’s student Hirose Kain, and the three of them have left us a number of sets in the form of folding albums. However, each artist chose a slightly different combination of tree varieties. The reasons for these discrepancies are among the topics awaiting further research.

The sanjûrokkasen cherry-blossom painting at which the Mikuma school excelled can be regarded as an important example of the unity of painting and literature in bird-and-flower painting of the Edo period. In executing his own version of the theme, Mikuma Shikô’s student Hirose Kain had each of his paintings inscribed by one of the foremost poets of the day; his dream was that one day, when the twelfth-century Sakuranomiya shrine in Kyoto had been rebuilt, he would present this album as an offering to the god of cherry blossoms, to whom the shrine was dedicated, that his artwork might dwell there forever in the company of the deity. Here, too, the association of cherry blossoms with Japanese poetry is vividly manifested. At the same time, this example serves to demonstrate that while these Edo-period artists believed that the flowering cherry was unique to Japan, they were by no means practicing their art in the service of the "state," as was common in the succeeding age of imperialism, from the late nineteenth century on.

Another aspect of the Mikuma school that merits further study is the role of Rokô and Oda Shitsushitsu, particularly since so little is known about the lives and careers of the many woman painters active in the Edo period. Shitsushitsu, who painted the most original, dynamic, and powerful works of the Mikuma school, spent the latter half of her life as a Buddhist nun yet continued producing cherry-blossom pictures in quiet obscurity, far from the artistic limelight, as painting offerings to the Buddha. Once again, there is no hint of ultranationalism in her work, and nothing whatever to suggest that she was painting cherry blossoms to honor the Japanese state. To the contrary, it is her deep personal love for the flowers that comes through loud and clear not only in the paintings themselves but in the seal with which she impresses her paintings: seki-ka-jin, or "blossom-lamenting person"—that is, "I who lament the falling of the blossoms."

Of course, even today cherry blossoms remain a favorite of the Japanese people, many of whom are still convinced that they are unique to Japan. Out of curiosity, I looked up cherry blossoms to see what they mean in the Western language of flowers and found, to my surprise, that they symbolize "spiritual beauty"—a clear echo of Yamato-damashii. Who would have thought that a remnant of Japan’s war years would lie thus hidden within today’s language of flowers? Granting that flower symbolism changes over time, surely the time has come to restore to the cherry blossom its original associations with Japanese poetry. To do so, we must pull back the layers of interpretation imposed in the era of militarism and deepen our understanding of the history of bird-and-flower painting—in the contexts of Chinese tradition and of Japan’s own overlapping but distinct system of symbolism—through the ongoing study of the Mikuma school and other neglected representatives of this important genre.

Translated from an original article in Japanese written for Japan Echo.

*Imahashi Riko, Edo no kachôga—hakubutsugaku o meguru bunka to sono hyôshô (Bird-and-Flower: The Representation of Natural History During the Edo Period) (Tokyo: Skydoor, 1995), p. 16.

†Tokyo National Museum, Kisshô—Chûgoku bijutsu ni komerareta imi (Good Fortune—Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art) (exhibition catalog, 1998), pp. 6–24.

*Imahashi Riko, Edo kaiga to bungaku—byôsha to kotoba no Edo bunkashi (The Art of Describing in Tokugawa Japan: Painting and Literature) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1999), pp. 35–116.

†Ôta Nanpo, Ichiwa ichigen (One Discourse, One Word), vol. 36, in Nihon zuihitsu taisei (bekkan): Ichiwa ichigen 5 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, 1978), p. 198.

*Kinsei kijin den, Zoku kinsei kijin den (Biographies of Extraordinary People of Recent Times; More Biographies of Extraordinary People of Recent Times), annotated by Munemasa Isoo (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1972), pp. 258–59.

© 2005 Japan Echo Inc.

More Cool links:
Japanese Myth Symbols
Texuba Vintage Kimono
Norman A. Rubin: Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore

Lots of info B

[Eppy]

Thank you so much, loads of great information.

I spent days hunting around and didn't find any of this.

Thanks again.