Block · kaisho 楷書 · VB2C
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.
独行道
dokkōdō
The Path of Aloneness
The way one walks alone: Miyamoto Musashi's heading over twenty-one articles on his own conduct.
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
独行道 is the title of a rule of one man's own conduct: almost all of its articles say what he does not do. The middle character, 行, can mean walking or doing, so the title reads two ways: the way one walks alone, or the way of solitary conduct. The tradition has called the sheet it heads a vow to himself, a self-admonition and a parting word. Which reading you take is yours. Our English title, The Path of Aloneness, is not wrong, but it is an anonymous phrase of 2007 that names a condition where the Japanese names an act, and most translators on record since 2003 use a verb of walking or going.
独行道 is a combination of the word 独行 (read dokkō) meaning "going alone; self-reliant" and 道 (read dō) meaning "the way; teachings".
Twenty-one articles brushed by Miyamoto Musashi 宮本武蔵, on Kumamoto Prefecture's judgment of the hand, and dated by the sheet's colophon and by the school's chronicles to the twelfth day of the fifth month of 1645, a week before his death; the prefecture that designated the sheet in 2003 holds it more natural to take that colophon, with its address to his pupil Terao Magonojō 寺尾孫之丞, as a later insertion, while the earliest study of the sheet as a text among the sources read here, Shitō Seiya's of 1967, reads it as Musashi's own, written on another day.
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 独行道.
