Eri's Choice · VD5B
Eri's Choice is a design that does not keep strictly to one style; it is Master Takase's own artistic choice.
為せば成る naseba naru Try and You Will Succeed
Do it and it gets done.
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
為せば成る says that a thing gets done by being done: set your hand to it, and it can be accomplished. It opens a poem the whole country half-knows: なせばなる なさねばならぬ 何事も ならぬは人の なさぬなりけり. Do it and it gets done, leave it and it does not; whatever it is, what stays undone is what nobody did.
The words carry the first line alone because the reader supplies the rest, and the force of the poem is in its last line, which turns a failure into a choice.
The dictionaries set beside it a line of the Chinese Book of Documents, without doing, what is done, as the same thought in an older book. Every design brushes the kanji form 為せば成る, the dictionary headword; the poem itself is usually written in kana. Try and You Will Succeed is the sense in English idiom; the literal line is do it and it gets done.
The poem closes a wall-writing the Yonezawa lord Uesugi Yōzan 上杉鷹山 gave his heir's attendants, as two records of the document copy it, one of them the domain's own, which dates it 1789; in popular print it ran from 1880 as an old poem, as nobody's and under other names, and that he composed it is received, not proven.
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 為せば成る.
