Eri's Choice · VD4B
Eri's Choice is a design that does not keep strictly to one style; it is Master Takase's own artistic choice.
真善美
shinzenbi
Truth, Goodness, Beauty
Truth, goodness, beauty: one ideal seen three ways, and the high standard kyūdō sets for the target and the archer alike.
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
The three ends a mind can aim at are what knowing seeks, what doing seeks and what beholding seeks. The word sets them side by side as one ideal. By the earliest witness found, it came into Japanese in a translation of 1874, and its sense has not moved since. What has changed is who claimed it. A school hangs it over its gate as a motto. Kyūdō took it late, in books of the 1930s that read it into the target and the archer alike, and the All Nippon Kyudo Federation names the three as the discipline's high standard. The federation's page glosses 真 as the bow that does not lie, 善 as the composed mind, and 美 as the crystal the two form when they become one.
真善美 is composed of 真 (read shin) meaning "truth", 善 (read zen) meaning "goodness", and 美 (read bi) meaning "beauty".
The three characters translate the triad of the true, the good and the beautiful, set side by side, one encyclopedia says, probably only in modern philosophy and, it is thought, from Kant (Victor Cousin's book of 1853, the neo-Kantians); Kimura Takatarō in 1907 called Plato the ancestor of the doctrine of their union. Among the hits read, the earliest witness the national library's full-text index gives for the three side by side is the Ministry of Education's translation of 1874; magazines of 1889 print them as one word in the index's excerpts, and Miyake Setsurei set the word on the cover of his book of 1891, which with its sequel, its editor of 1919 says, drew a great response.
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 真善美.
