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.
初志貫徹
shoshi kantetsu
Carry Your First Aim Through to the End
Carry the aim you first set through to the end, without giving in.
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.
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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
初志貫徹 (shoshi kantetsu): carrying the aim you first set through to the end.
初志 is the hope or aim first conceived, and 貫徹 is to carry it through, keeping on to the end without giving in. The デジタル大辞泉 gives 初志貫徹 as one of two examples under 貫徹. Whether it is for a graduate or for anyone holding to a goal is yours.
On 6 July 1891 the Imperial University's College of Science held a graduation for a short course. The graduates' representative closed their reply with a saying: when the spirit goes all the way, what cannot be done? Dull as they were, he said, they meant, unbending and unbowed, to carry their first aim through.
In a medical journal of late 1895 or soon after, fourteen doctors who had resigned their posts together held a great banquet. They were celebrating that they had carried their first aim through. In 1903 a middle-school ethics textbook defined endurance as the courage not to give in to hardship, and to carry your first aim through.
Japanese, of the Meiji period: the four characters shorten the phrase 初志を貫徹する, one of a family of 貫徹 phrases in the official and letter-writing style of the 1860s to 1880s, and the earliest use of them found for this history, in the National Diet Library's full text, is in a medical journal of late 1895 or soon after; 初志 alone is a classical Chinese word, used by Cao Zhi in 225.
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 初志貫徹.
