Cursive · sōsho 草書 · VC4B
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.
起死回生
kishi kaisei
Miraculous Comeback
A miraculous comeback: the physician's praise for raising the dying, and the home run that pulls the game out of the fire.
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
起死回生 (kishi kaisei): a miraculous comeback, a recovery from the brink.
起死回生 brings back what was all but lost. It means to raise the dying and return them to life, in old Chinese tales and in medicine. From that it fits anything pulled back at the last moment, from a fallen house's cause in 1886 to the hit that saves a game in 1929. The first character means to raise, not to wake, so the word belongs to a recovery and not to a funeral. The word is the physician's, and the comeback follows from it.
起死回生 is composed of the kanji 起 (read ki) meaning "raise", 死 (read shi) meaning "death", 回 (read kai) meaning "return", and 生 (read sei) meaning "life".
起死回生 is a Chinese phrase for raising the dying and returning the dead to life; its earliest firmly dated witnesses read are a collection of tales of 978, of a woman immortal, and, in medicine, a Tang physician's book as the Song editors printed it in 1066, where an older copy of one recipe reads only 起死人, raises the dead; Kyoto printers set it in Chinese books by 1639, and its first known Japanese writer, among the dated items in the National Diet Library's full-text index, is Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹, praising four famous physicians in a book written about 1641 and printed by 1649.
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 起死回生.
