Eri's Choice · VD5J
Eri's Choice is a design that does not keep strictly to one style; it is Master Takase's own artistic choice.
敬天愛人
keiten aijin
Revere Heaven, Love People
Revere Heaven and love people: a phrase often taken as one's motto.
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
敬天愛人 (keiten aijin): revere Heaven and love people, a phrase often taken as one's motto.
A dictionary of four-character phrases reads the phrase as a goal. Never neglect self-cultivation, it says, and reach the state of revering Heaven and loving people. The same dictionary says the phrase is known as the motto of Saigō Takamori. Whether you take it as a teacher's word or as your own motto is yours.
Saigō Takamori liked to write the phrase, and many of his pieces survive. One, written in 1875 at his students' request, hung for a long time in the dōjō of the 四方学舎. His sayings were published in 1890. In the Iwanami edition of 1939, one article says the way of learning takes revering Heaven and loving people as its aim. The same article says to begin and end with mastering oneself. Heaven loves others and me alike, a later article says, so with the heart that loves myself I love others.
A judo book of 1913 quoted Saigō's saying in its chapter on training the spirit. To follow the Way plainly and walk it, it says, is judo of the spirit. In 1908 Uchimura Kanzō wrote in English of Saigō: "Revere Heaven; love people," summed up all his views of life. The company Kyocera took the phrase as its motto.
Chinese: the four characters stand together in Chinese texts from 1087 as a virtue of rulers, and in the Jesuit Giulio Aleni's 職方外紀 (1623) for Europe's Christian charity; in Japan the oldest print found is Nakamura Masanao's afterword to the 西國立志編 (1870), and the phrase is remembered as Saigō Takamori's, from his brush (a piece of 1875) and his sayings (published 1890).
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 敬天愛人.
