Semi-Cursive · gyōsho 行書 · VS3C
Semi-Cursive or gyōsho (行書) styles are a simplified and softer form of the kaisho styles. Gyōsho styles can be read by most Japanese.
今を生きる
ima o ikiru
Live the Moment
Live the moment: the Japanese title of Dead Poets Society, and Horace's carpe diem in five characters.
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
今を生きる (ima o ikiru): live the moment, live the now.
Not to live in the present but to live it. The now is the thing lived, not the time one lives in, and the particle を is what makes it so. It is carpe diem in plain modern Japanese, seize the day. It also says to live wholly in the present. A person who chooses it for a fresh start has the first. A person who chooses it for attention to the present has the second. The phrase holds both, and which is yours.
The phrase was in Japanese print by 1914, in its classical form 今を生きん, when the critic Sōma Gyofū wrote of how to live the now, and as it stands, 今を生きる, by 1930, the earliest that form in the Diet Library's full-text index; in 1990, written いまを生きる, it was the title under which Japan saw the film Dead Poets Society, a title rendering the Latin carpe diem, the words that close Horace's ode, which the film's teacher glosses as "seize the 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 今を生きる.
