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2010年10月30日土曜日

水都の一景 (A Landscape of the City of Water)


 表記題名の水彩画を先日描き上げた。来る11月15日から18日まで堺市役所本館エントランスホールで開催される美交会展に、私が出品する予定の2点のうちの一つである。

 「水都(水の都)」とは、大阪の一つの愛称である。江戸時代、各地の大名がここに蔵屋敷を作り、在来の川に加えて多くの水路を作って年貢米を運んだため、そのように呼ばれるようになった。

The other day, I have finished drawing the watercolor of the title as shown above. It is one of the two works I am going to present at Bikōkai Exhibition, which is to be held at the main building of Sakai City Hall from the 15th to 18th of November.

"The City of Water" became one of the affectionate names of Osaka in Edo Period, because a number of rivers and canals crossed there. Canals were made in that period by daimyo (powerful territorial lords) of different regions of Japan to carry annual rice tax from and to their kurayashiki (house for storage and living) by boats.

From tweets of yesterday (edited by rephrasing, adding words, etc.)

About Astrophysics

"Earth-sized planets may be more common than we thought," physicsworld (October 28, 2010). —"Almost one in four stars like the Sun could harbor an Earth-mass planet, according to US researchers."

About Books

"Exploiting Entanglement," Science Vol. 330, No. 6004, p. 588 (October 29, 2010). —Jeremy L. O'Brien reviews Anton Zeilinger's Dance of the Photons: From Einstein to Quantum Teleportation. This book was also reviewed by Geoff Pryde in Nature Vol. 467, p. 1042 (October 28, 2010). [Retweeted by Glaucio Souza]

[From Glaucio Souza] It seems to be a good book.

[To Glaucio Souza] Yes, it does, to my trouble of enlarging the list of must-read books.

"Space-time turn around," Nature Vol. 467, p. 1034 (October 28, 2010). —Lee Smolin reviews Roger Penrose's Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe.

"The poetic beauty of equations," Vishy's Blog (October 23, 2010). —Includes excerpts from the foreword to It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science (via Graham Farmelo).

About Peace and Politics

[To J. Tanaka] 最近のノーベル賞受賞者では、益川博士が平和活動に熱心です。ノーベル賞講演(Toshihide Maskawa: Nobel Lecture 日本語)でも、戦争の愚かさについて触れておられました。科学関係のノーベル賞講演では、きわめて珍しいことだと思います。

[From J. Tanaka] ちょっとした発言でも、最近話題になった科学者の中で最も好感の持てる方です。

About Physicists

Ioannis Giomataris writes an obituary of the physicist who transformed the measurement of high-energy particles: "Georges Charpak (1924-2010)," Nature Vol. 467, p. 1048 (October 28, 2010).

About Physics

"How to hunt for hidden photons," Technology Review Physics arXiv Blog (October 28, 2010). —Ref: "Hidden Photons from the Sun" (arxiv.org/abs/1010.4689).

"Compact X-ray source could rival accelerators," physicsworld (October 27, 2010). —Plasma wiggler is much more brighter than previous attempts.

About Psychology

"Scientists plan to record people's dreams," Telegraph (October 28, 2010). —"Scientists think it will be possible to record people's dreams and then interpret them, according to a new report."

From conversation on Facebook of yesterday

[Mary Ellen Goree] Why does the word "dyslexic" have to be so difficult to spell?

The Japanese Ministry of Education and Science is planning to add some Chinese characters to "the regularly used Chinese Characters" to be taught at primary and secondary schools. The list of characters to be added includes a very difficult one "鬱," meaning "mental depression." I'll never write it by hand.

[Mary Ellen Goree] Hmmm, I wonder if any Japanese students will become depressed by their inability to write "鬱." ;-)

2 件のコメント:

  1. なんて素敵な絵なんでしょう!水面の微妙な色の移り変わりの表現が本当に素晴らしいです。そしてこの絵の中の「光」が私は大好きです。明るくてそれでいてとても柔らかいのが好きなのです。

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  2.  お褒めいただき、恐縮です。美交会展では、何人もの方々から、画風が変ったといわれました。実は、昨年までの絵は繊細過ぎて、同様の描き方では時間がかかり過ぎたり目が疲れたりすることと、もともと、もっと写真的でない絵を描きたいと思っていたことから、従来の作風を抜け出す一助として題材を少し変え、建造物が相対的に少ない(あるいは、もう一枚の今回の美交会展用作品では、それが全くない)風景にしました。水面の描写を褒めて下さる方も多いですが、この部分は最も時間をかけないで描いたところです。おおまかな印象から勢いよく描いたことが、よさにつながったのでしょう。

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