Cursive · sōsho 草書 · VC5J
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.
桃李満門
tōri manmon
A Gate Full of Excellent Pupils
A teacher with many excellent pupils; in the words, peach and plum fill the gate.
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.
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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
桃李満門 (tōri manmon): a teacher has many excellent pupils; the words say peach and plum fill the gate.
The Japanese dictionaries enter the phrase as 桃李門に満つ, tōri mon ni mitsu. There are many outstanding pupils under one's gate. Peach and plum are the people one raises and puts forward. The gate is the house of a teacher. In the Japanese writings read for its history, Takahashi Sōan's household of 1928 aside, the phrase is a tribute said of a teacher by others. Whether it is for a dōjō's teacher or for any teacher you honor is yours.
The Confucian scholar Uno Meika wrote of Kinoshita Jun'an's school that its gate was full of peach and plum. A book of scholars' lives of 1816 took his line into its life of Jun'an. It then listed Jun'an's pupils, beginning with Arai Hakuseki. The monk Gesshō wrote a poem to the master of a village school that opens on peach and plum filling his gate.
An essay on the Zen master Shaku Sōen, dated the day after his death in 1919, says peach and plum filled his gate. They came drawn of themselves, it says, and he did not spend his strength to widen his gate. In 1929 Tokutomi Sohō was asked for a title for an album of letters by the friends and pupils of Yokoi Shōnan. He brushed the four characters 桃李満門 three ways, large, middle and small.
Chinese: peach and plum as the people one raises go back to the Han collections' story of planting and to the 資治通鑑's line to Di Renjie (700); the four characters stand in a Chinese text of 1169, and in Japan, in the National Diet Library's full text, in a Zen letter of 1398.
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 桃李満門.
