Block · kaisho 楷書 · VB3C
Block or kaisho (楷書) styles are the most common and recognizable styles. Block styles are easily read and are noted for their angular form and their vertical and horizontal lines.
温故知新
onkochishin
Respect the Past, Create the New
Warm the old and know the new: a saying of Confucius on who is fit to teach.
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
温故知新 is Confucius's description of who is fit to teach: someone who, as we read it, takes up the old again and finds something new in it. What the old is has been argued over the centuries: one's own learning, the Way of antiquity, or everything earlier ages handed down. Commentators gave the first character two pictures, seek out and reheat, and Japanese readers still read it either way. Japanese dictionaries now read the phrase as study of the past. We read the old as received learning made one's own, and the person in the sentence is still the one who may teach.
On the designs VD4C and HD3B, Master Takase writes: "Look closely at the first character. Where one stroke of 日 belongs, I brushed a red dot. In traditional calligraphy this is not done, and that is the idea, the new inside the old. It is also an homage to Japanese roots. Japan is written 日本, and the red dot is the sun as on the Japanese flag. So both a respect for the traditional, and a touch of the new with color inside the traditional calligraphy."
The line is a saying of Confucius as the Analects records it, chapter 為政, saying eleven, about who is fit to teach; the four characters without the connective 而 already stand as a phrase in a Chinese edict of 23 BC, and a Japanese edict of 703 is the earliest Japanese use the 日本国語大辞典 records.
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 温故知新.
