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.
柔能制剛
jū yoku gō o seisu
The Soft Overcomes the Hard
The soft overcomes the hard: the supple turns aside the strong and wins in the end.
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.
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Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
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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
柔能制剛 (jū yoku gō o seisu): the soft and supple overcome the hard and strong.
柔能制剛 is read in Japanese as a sentence, 柔能く剛を制す. The supple deftly turns aside the sharp point of the hard and strong, and wins in the end. By extension, the soft and weak prevail over the hard and strong, against expectation. A Japanese dictionary sets beside it the saying that the willow is not broken by the snow. Whether it is for the judo mat or for the conduct of a life is yours.
In a puppet play of 1721, the mother of the strategist Yamamoto Kansuke asks Takeda Shingen how he would use his soldiers. He feeds a fire twig by twig until the kettle boils, and she answers with the saying. In 1748 the last act of the 忠臣蔵, the night attack of the forty-seven rōnin, opens on it. In 1755 the scholar Matsumiya Kanzan wrote that the name 柔術, jūjutsu, no doubt means this saying. In 1923 Kanō Jigorō, the founder of judo, wrote that it explains one part of judo contests, not the whole of judo.
A 1925 book prints jūjutsu passages saying true softness comes out of the midst of hardness, and the soft without the hard drifts into weakness. A dictionary of calligraphy phrases printed in 1942 offers the saying as a line to brush, beside lines warning against leaning to one side. In Japanese it is also written 柔よく剛を制す. In English it has been rendered The soft can overcome the hard (1872) and Softness overcomes hardness (1974).
The four characters are a quotation in the first section of the 三略, a Chinese military book under the name of Huang Shigong, which takes them from a lost book of military sayings and warns in the same section that a state that is only soft is pared away; the earliest dated use read for this history is the emperor Guangwu's edict of 51 CE refusing his generals a war.
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 柔能制剛.
