Translation? Maybe.

[cereal1]

I have an oil painting I found in my attic. It has symbols on it. Kanji? I don't know, I don't even know if this is the right forum for it.

I have a picture of it, it's rather big 700kb+

I hope someone can tell me what it says. I'd be forever grateful.

http://fark.com.home.mchsi.com/maybekanji.jpg

EDIT: Larger Pictures Posted.

http://fark.com.home.mchsi.com/Kanji/1of5.jpg
http://fark.com.home.mchsi.com/Kanji/2of5.jpg
http://fark.com.home.mchsi.com/Kanji/3of5.jpg
http://fark.com.home.mchsi.com/Kanji/4of5.jpg
http://fark.com.home.mchsi.com/Kanji/5of5.jpg

Someone also told me the red is the authors Stamp, and their signature is also on there.
Oh and the Black is a poem that starts with '100'

[cereal1]

Um, Did I post this is the wrong forum or something?

[Damicci]

Patience my friend. the more experienced people do not post as often as you would like.

[cereal1]

Okay, sorry, I'm just impatient.

[GaijinPunch]

Good luck dude... you're going to need a very smart native speaker I think. Old school Japanese is not easy.

[epigene]

Um, Did I post this is the wrong forum or something?
Maybe you did.... :souka:

First of all, it is very likely Chinese and the poetry and the author are not classical Chinese peotry studied in Japan (漢詩). The author's name 宋月 (read "Sougetsu" in Japanese) is not a poet known in Japan.

My husband was trained in classical Chinese poetry (as studied in Japan) and says he can't read what's written, which means some of the characters are Chinese hanzi not used in Japanese.

The "kanshi" written on it doesn't show a hit in Google, even in Chinese web pages. It may be a poem written by a less-known poet or even an amateur poet who has his own pen name.

Also, the stamp impress just shows the kanji characters for Sougetsu.

Hope it helps!! :sorry:

[cereal1]

The painting doesn't look that old, are any of the symbols a date?

[epigene]

I don't see any dates. It appears just to be a poem, followed by the author's name Sougetsu (don't know how to read it in Chinese) and the poet's seal impression.

I think you'll have better chance of understanding what the poem means at a Chinese language forum.

Good luck! :bluush: