花鳥風月 kachō fūgetsu Beauties of Nature

The beautiful things of nature, and the pleasure of looking at them and making poems of them: the phrase carries both senses, and the second is the older. Four characters in two pairs, flowers and birds, the painter's subject, and wind and moon, the poet's; the pairs are Chinese, and Japan joined them into one phrase six hundred years ago, first in the hand of the man who made Noh, and every master of linked verse and haiku after him used it for the elegant world a poem is built from. The order is fixed, and the four-word literal is the standard English; the house title names the things, and the pleasure taken in them is the half this page puts back. Whether it is for the four things or for the pastime of enjoying them is yours.

This is a particularly beautiful expression as it is composed of four of nature's most beautiful creations which are 花 (read ka) meaning "flowers", 鳥 (read chō) meaning "birds", 風 (read fū) meaning "wind", and 月 (read getsu) meaning "moon".

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 花鳥風月.

Each design is Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's hand-brushed calligraphy of the word or phrase on this page, delivered as a PDF you can print. Every PDF includes the line art, so a tattoo artist or a craftsperson can work from the outline as well as the brushed image.

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