Cursive · sōsho 草書 · VC6B
Cursive or sōsho (草書) styles are the most simplified styles and Master Takase's favorite. While very beautiful, these styles are often difficult to read even by specialists.
人間万事塞翁が馬
ningen banji saiō ga uma
All is Saiō's Horse
Everything in this world is the old man's horse.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
Gift-Ready
Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
Sending it as a gift? Add your message at checkout and we will include it with the insert.
Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
Your scroll ships from Master Takase's studio in Washington State. Shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship worldwide.
30-day money-back guarantee
Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping.
Explanation
Good luck and bad turn into each other without warning, so neither is to be rejoiced at or grieved over yet. The story is a Han parable in the 淮南子: an old man by the frontier fort loses his horse, gets it back with another, sees his son break a leg on the new one, and sees that leg keep the son out of the war, declining to react at each turn.
人間 is read ningen, as every Edo witness has it; jinkan is a learned modern choice.
The seven characters are the seventh line of a poem by the Yuan Zen monk 晦機元熙 (Huiji Yuanxi), about 1300, 寄徑山虛谷陵和尚, and a Japanese dictionary of 1444, the 下学集, already names him as its poet. A proverb book of 1701 gave the couplet to Su Dongpo, and proverb books went on doing so into the 1930s, though a Confucian scholar's essay, printed in 1763, had set the monk back. Behind the line stands a much older Chinese parable, the 淮南子's second-century-BC chapter 人間訓, which the monk's couplet distills rather than retells.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 人間万事塞翁が馬.
