| Good Post Mike. But you had me screaming at the screen ( I can see but I can't post in 'lock down' on the trading computers!). LOls
I was screaming cause you got SOooooo Close with comment about the genetics without finishing off the point!!
Shiro ground used to be referred to, by the old timers, as 'the canvas' that pattern is painted on. This was really meant to be baby talk for beginners in the area of koi appreciation. It would have been impossible for the Japanese to 'flesh out' the deeper meaning of shiro ground. So a general ' soft white- good' and ' hard white - bad' was about all that could be suggested without going to the genetic aspect of these seemly same white shades.
In truth, the Japanese breeders and ZNA members where already advancing beyond Jitai and other concepts that tied shiro ground in with the overall concept of quality and further, that the 'quality skin' of a certain type displayed the color cells better due mostly to its transparent nature and thickness. The contradiction of 'THICK, but not heavy looking' because it was transparent. This allowed for the human eye to see depth of color in the pattern and allowed for 'coats' of beni to all be seen at one time.
So the simple version of this is " o, Japanese like porcelain white and Americans, with their western taste, like bright hard white'. It was just not about that. It was that certain skin made the whole fish better. And that white happened to be of a softer white porcelain appearance.
The hard white is a spreading gene. It was a mutation in koi seen many years ago. It is the mutation that created white based fish and black based fish. This is the first lesson of koi appreciation. From there, the breeding programs refined the white to a clean white and then to the soft white of today. So in a certain real sense, the hard white is a genetic throw back and a more primitive white. It is good for compound patterns ( goromo and goshiki and all karsu goi) in that allows for an intensity of color in young fish ( the skin is thinner in youngsters and the scale surface is less). But not so good for kohaku and sanke. JR |