Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

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心正則筆正 kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi When the Heart Is Upright, the Brush Is Upright

Japanese Scroll of When the Heart Is Upright, the Brush Is Upright (kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
心正則筆正 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

心正則筆正, when the heart is upright, the brush is upright, read in Japanese 心正しければ筆正し or 心正しければ則ち筆正し, is the answer the Tang calligrapher 柳公權 Liu Gongquan (778–865) gave the emperor 穆宗 Muzong when asked about his brush, as both Tang histories tell it: in the 舊唐書, the Old History, of 945, the emperor asks how his brush comes to be so good, and Liu answers 用筆在心，心正則筆正, the use of the brush lies in the heart; when the heart is upright, the brush is upright; in the 新唐書, the New History, of 1060, the emperor asks the method of using the brush, and the answer runs on, 筆正乃可法矣, when the brush is upright, it can be taken as a model; and both say the emperor changed countenance, knowing it for a remonstrance made by the brush, 筆諫 (the Old History 知其筆諫也, the New 悟其以筆諫也) [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Later readers took it in different ways: 蘇軾 Su Shi wrote that it was not only a veiled remonstrance; the principle holds; the Ming writer 項穆 Xiang Mu turned it to when the man is upright, the writing is upright; and the Qing calligrapher 梁同書 Liang Tongshu said that many earlier writers had explained it as moralizing borrowed for a remonstrance, and that it is only a matter of holding the soft brush firm every moment [7][8][9][10]. In Japan the earliest uses of the line read for this history take it of handwriting: a letter of 横川景三 Ōsen Keisan of about 1468–69 sets it where someone has asked for a specimen of handwriting; 細流抄, a commentary on the Tale of Genji of 1528, gives it as the gloss on the rainy-night talk of handwriting; and 才葉抄, a medieval calligraphy teaching of unsettled date, cites it as the text for the saying that one's hand shows one's heart [11][12][13]. In English Herbert Giles in 1898 made it I keep my heart correct, and my pen follows [14].

A reading

I read the five characters, standing alone as they are sold, as a saying about the brush in which one word, 正, names the posture and the person at once. Both histories put the emperor's question about brushwork: 筆何盡善, how is your brush so good?, in the Old History, and 用筆法, the method of using the brush, in the New [1][2]. The answer is first an answer to that question, and the New History's second clause, when the brush is upright, it can be taken as a model, keeps it there [4]. That it was also a remonstrance is the historians' account of why the emperor changed countenance: the Old History sets the exchange after the words 穆宗政僻, 穆宗's government had gone astray; the New says the emperor was dissolute (荒縱), so that Liu touched on it (及之) [1][2]. 森常雄 Mori Tsuneo argued from the question's own wording in 1991 that 筆正 means the brush standing straight, against what he calls the common reading (通説), that a right heart gives right brushwork of itself, 心の正しい者は、筆法もおのずから正しい [15]. 梁同書 had said not to read the line as a moralist's saying [10]. But the answer's 正 is one word, and the Japanese reading keeps both its senses: 正しい leads in the dictionaries with straight, not bent or slanting, and goes on to in accord with morality and right [16]. Of the readings read here, 蘇軾's not only a veiled remonstrance; the principle holds is the one that refuses neither [7][8]. The early Japanese uses read it the same way: the 才葉抄 cites it as the text for 手跡にて人の心の程は被知也, by one's hand the measure of one's heart is known, and 林羅山 Hayashi Razan explains that the heart moves the shoulder, the wrist and the fingers that hold the brush, and that this is so not in brushwork only: in everything [13][17]. So I sign the line as a saying of the brush that is also a saying of the person: the heart held upright holds the brush upright, and the writing shows it. Upright is the English word that keeps both senses of 正, and the title uses it. The remonstrance is the story the histories tell of the line's first hearing; it belongs to the line's history, and the five characters alone do not need it. Signed, 典.

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Overview

The sense. At kotobank the encyclopedias give the line under 柳公権. The 日本大百科全書 calls it famous as the saying of the brush remonstrance: 穆宗に筆法を問われて、『用筆は心に在り、心正しければ筆正し』と答えたいわゆる『筆諫(ひっかん)の言』は有名である, asked by 穆宗 about the method of the brush, he answered "the use of the brush lies in the heart; when the heart is upright, the brush is upright", the so-called saying of the brush remonstrance, which is famous [3].

The words. 心, the heart, the mind, is in デジタル大辞泉 人間の理性・知識・感情・意志などの働きのもとになるもの, what reason, knowledge, feeling and will in a person spring from [18]. 正, in the Japanese reading 正しい, is in 精選版 日本国語大辞典 first 形や向きがまっすぐである。ゆがんだり曲がったりしていない, straight in shape or direction; not warped or bent, and third 道徳、規則、道理、作法…にかなっている, in accord with morality, rule, reason, manners; デジタル大辞泉 orders it the same way, 形や向きがまっすぐである first, 道徳・法律・作法などにかなっている third [16]. JMdict gives right; correct and proper; righteous; just; honest; truthful; lawful, with no sense of straight [19]. 則 is a particle, then: デジタル大辞泉 gives すなわち among its readings and as its third sense [20]. The 1663 print of 万水一露 reads the line ココロタヽシキトキハスナハチフデタヽシ, when the heart is upright, then the brush is upright [21], and Stevens's kokoro tadashikereba sunawachi fude tadashi keeps the すなわち [22]. Of the three encyclopedias at kotobank, ニッポニカ reads it 心正しければ筆正し, leaving 則 unread, where 世界大百科 and ブリタニカ keep it, 心正しければ則ち筆正し [3]. 筆 is the brush and the use of it: 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives first the brush itself and second 筆を用いて書くこと。また、その書いたものや筆の使い方, writing with a brush; also what is written so, and the way the brush is used [23]. 筆諫, remonstrance by the brush, has no entry in JMdict; the word is the histories' own (知其筆諫也; 悟其以筆諫也) [1][2]. The title renders 正 as upright, which can say both what the brush is and what a person is.

The text in English. Herbert Giles in 1898: "I guide my pen," replied Liu, "by my heart. I keep my heart correct, and my pen follows." [14]. O. W. Bouldin in 1913, translating a Japanese sermon that gives the line without Liu's name: if the heart is right the pen will naturally go right [24]. Osvald Sirén in 1933: If the heart is upright, the brush is firm [25]. John Stevens, in a book of 1984 read in its printing of 1994: If your mind is correct, the brush will be correct [22]. Each is taken in its place below.

The historical record

The text

945. The Old History. The 舊唐書 tells Liu's life after his elder brother 柳公綽's. When 穆宗 came to the throne, he said he had seen Liu's writing in a Buddhist temple and had long thought of it, and made him a scholar attending the emperor's writing (侍書學士) [1][5]. Then [1]:

穆宗政僻，嘗問公權筆何盡善，對曰：「用筆在心，心正則筆正。」上改容，知其筆諫也。

穆宗's government had gone astray. He once asked 公權 how his brush came to be so good. He answered: "The use of the brush lies in the heart; when the heart is upright, the brush is upright." The emperor changed countenance, knowing it for a remonstrance made by the brush. The text is read here in a text database; at a printed leaf it is read through the collation of 1872 by 羅士琳 and 劉文淇, whose lemma is 嘗問公權筆何盡善, with a note that the commentary on the 事類賦 reads 則 after 何 [26].

1060. The New History. The 新唐書, read here at the leaf of a Japanese print cut in 1748 [4][2][6]:

帝問公權用筆法。對曰。心正則筆正。筆正乃可法矣。時帝荒縱。故公權及之。帝攺容。悟其以筆諫也。

The emperor asked 公權 the method of using the brush. He answered: "When the heart is upright, the brush is upright. When the brush is upright, it can be taken as a model." At that time the emperor was dissolute, so 公權 touched on it. The emperor changed countenance, understanding that he had remonstrated by means of the brush. The print's reading marks give the last words as 悟ルニ其ノ以テ筆ヲ諫ムルヲ, remonstrated by means of the brush [4]. The five characters sold are the ones the two histories share.

The reading that divides, in China

蘇軾. 蘇軾 (1036–1101) wrote of Liu's calligraphy, as a Japanese collection of 1891–97 prints it [8][7][27]:

柳少師書。本出於顏。而能自出新意。一字百金。非虛語也。其言心正則筆正者。非獨諷諫。理固然也。世之小人。書字雖工。而其神情終有雎盱側媚之態。

Liu's calligraphy came from Yan's, and yet he could bring out new ideas of his own; "a hundred gold for one character" is no empty saying. His saying that when the heart is upright the brush is upright was not only a veiled remonstrance (諷諫): the principle holds. The petty men of the world may write skillfully, yet their manner always has a look of glaring and fawning. He then asks whether we only see in the writing what we already think of the man, like the man in the old story who suspected his neighbor of stealing his axe, or whether it is truly there (如韓子所謂竊斧者乎，抑真爾也) [7]. In a poem to two of Liu's descendants who asked him for his writing, he ends on the remonstrance: 欲見誠懸筆諫時, I would see the time of 誠懸's remonstrance by the brush, 誠懸 being Liu's courtesy name [28][26].

The Yuan: remonstrance. The commentary of 劉有定 on 鄭杓's 衍極 says 柳誠懸曰：心正則筆正。可謂善於筆諫矣, Liu said: when the heart is upright, the brush is upright. One may call it a fine remonstrance by the brush [29]. 盛熙明's 法書攷 tells the story in the Old History's form and keeps its last words, 知其以筆諫也 [30].

The Ming: the man in the hand. 費瀛 sets the line beside 揚雄's saying that writing is the picture of the heart: 楊子雲以書為心畫，柳誠懸謂心正則筆正，皆書家名言也, 揚雄 took writing as the heart's picture, and Liu said that when the heart is upright the brush is upright; both are famous sayings of the calligraphers, and concludes that learning to write begins with making oneself a person, and that with making the heart upright [31]. 項穆 goes a step further: 柳公權曰：心正則筆正。餘今曰：人正則書正, Liu said: when the heart is upright, the brush is upright. I now say: when the man is upright, the writing is upright [9].

The Qing: how the brush is held. 梁同書 (1723–1815), who had first learned his hand from 顔真卿 and from Liu himself [32], wrote in two letters that the line is about holding a soft brush. In the first: 柳公云：心正筆正，莫作道學語看，正是不得不刻刻把持，以輭筆故, Liu says: heart upright, brush upright. Do not read it as a moralist's saying; it is just that one must hold the brush firm every moment, because the brush is soft. In the second: 心正筆正，前人多以道學借諫爲解，獨弟以爲不然, many earlier writers explained "heart upright, brush upright" as moralizing borrowed for a remonstrance; I alone think otherwise [33][10]. 周星蓮 reads it of the centered tip: 柳公權曰：心正則筆正，筆正則鋒易於正。中鋒即是正鋒, when the brush is upright the tip is easily upright; the centered tip is the upright tip [34]. 戈守智, in a Qing manual on holding the brush, joined it to archery and the Rites: the will within upright and the body without straight, the archer holds his bow firm and hits, 此誠懸心正筆正之論也, this is Liu's saying, heart upright, brush upright, so that a beginner at writing must first learn to hold the brush [33][35].

A Meiji gathering. 細川潤次郎 put the range in one entry of his 梧園書話 in 1902: 揚雄's picture of the heart, the Tang emperor 太宗 on writing with the heart upright and the breath at peace (心正氣和), 書家說心正者、不獨柳公權也, the calligraphers who speak of the upright heart are not Liu alone, 戈守智's archery, and 梁同書's two letters [33].

The line in Japan

Before 1422. A Gozan quatrain. The anthology of Gozan verse 翰林五鳳集, compiled about 1623, keeps a quatrain by 西胤 on a painting titled 唐太宗與柳公權聯句圖, the Tang 太宗 and 柳公權 composing linked verse [36][37]: 筆諫名高侍翰林, famed for his remonstrance by the brush, he served in the Hanlin. 西胤俊承 (1358–1422) was a monk of 相国寺 [38]; that the anthology's 西胤 is he rests on the name. The quatrain names the story, not the line.

About 1468–69. 横川景三's letter. 横川景三 (1429–1493) [39], answering a letter, dates his own words: the old man to whom he writes took lodging among the mountains in 寛正甲申, 1464 (寛正甲申歳翁曾以事寓于万山); five years have passed without word between them (自尓以降伊水洛河不相聞知者五年于此矣); and earlier (前年) the two tigers of the capital fought, 抑又前年京兆金吾兩虎相鬭 [11]. Then, in the National Diet Library's manuscript, which 国書総目録 describes as a copy of the 文明 era (1469–87) by 景徐周麟 [11][40]:

茲承有人求手迹、頗爲難、諭翁心正筆正、非一代治法乎

Now I hear that someone has asked for a specimen of handwriting, which is hard to grant. The rest can be parsed two ways: I would explain to you, old man, that "heart upright, brush upright" is a law for more than one age, or you, old man, teach "heart upright, brush upright": is that not a law for more than one age? Either way the line stands in the four-character form, and it is said of handwriting.

1499. 帳中香. 万里集九's commentary on the poems of 黄庭堅, whose postface is dated 1499 [41][42], quotes the New History's exchange, without its occasion (時帝荒縱，故公權及之), in a note on a brush, in a print catalogued as of 1596–1624 [43]: 柳公權唐穆宗朝拜侍書學士帝問筆法對曰心正則筆正〻乃可法矣帝改容悟其以筆諫也, the mark 〻 repeating 筆正.

1528. The Tale of Genji. In the second chapter of the Tale of Genji, 帚木, the young men's rainy-night talk compares handwriting that only looks clever with handwriting that has the true line (まことのすぢ). 細流抄, the Genji lectures of 三条西実隆 Sanjōnishi Sanetaka gathered by his son 公条, finished in 1528 [44][45], glosses the passage with the New History [12]:

手をかきたる　是より手跡を云也　唐穆宗問筆法柳公權曰正則筆正〻乃可法矣といへり　とりならへてみれは　哥道も如此也

"Of handwriting": from here it speaks of the hand. The Tang 穆宗 asked the method of the brush, and Liu said (the heart) upright, the brush upright; the brush upright can be taken as a model. "Set side by side": the way of poetry is so too. This copy drops 心 after 曰, a copyist's slip the sense requires. The later commentaries read here carry the gloss too, two of them under the mark 細 for 細流抄: 万水一露 of 1545, by 能登永閑 Nōto Eikan, in a print of 1663 that reads it ココロタヽシキトキハスナハチフデタヽシ [21][46]; 首書源氏物語, with a postface of 1640 [47]; and 北村季吟 Kitamura Kigin's 湖月抄 of 1673, with the reading marks 心正キトキハ則筆正シ [48][49]. 中院通勝 Nakanoin Michikatsu's 岷江入楚 of 1598, in a copy of 1643, adds a comment: 是は筆法のみにあらす心の正しきか万事によき事をいへり, this is not brushwork only: it says that an upright heart is good in all things; in a later chapter it gives the line in Japanese, 心正しけれは筆正しといへることくに, as it is said, when the heart is upright the brush is upright [50][51][52]. Two commentaries the library's records give to 里村紹巴 tell it differently, naming the emperor as 太宗 (written 大宗), adding the converse, and setting Liu beside the Japanese calligrapher 藤原行成: the print reads 唐大宗時柳公權筆諫　心正則筆正云々　心不正則不正筆歟　御堂殿之時行成…, …when the heart is not upright, perhaps the brush is not upright [53], and the manuscript 唐ノ大宗ノ時柳公權カ筆諫　心正則筆正不正則筆不正　御堂殿ノ時行成ノ書ヲ唐ヘ… [54]. 細流抄 is the earliest Genji commentary read here that carries the gloss; whether the older commentaries do is not known (§ Sources not seen).

1534 and 1563. Lectures on Chinese books. 四河入海, 笑雲清三's compilation of lectures on 蘇軾's poems, finished in 1534 [55], explains 欲見誠懸筆諫時 with the New History's answer and its occasion: 唐穆宗ノ筆法ヲ用ルヿヲ問ハシタレハ公權カ答テ云ソ、心正則筆正…乃可法矣ト答テ、穆宗ノ荒縦ヲ諫タソ, when the Tang 穆宗 asked about using the brush, 公權 answered … and so remonstrated with 穆宗's dissoluteness [56]. 惟高妙安's lectures 玉塵抄, begun in 1563 [57], retell it in Japanese, 唐ノ穆宗ノ書法ヲ問ハシ…タレハ心正則筆正法トスヘシトコタエタソ, when the Tang 穆宗 asked about the method of writing, he answered that when the heart is upright the brush is upright and can be taken as a model, and join it to 蘇軾's poem [58].

1548 and 1610. Praise of a hand. In a memorial sermon dated 天文十七年三月十七日 (1548), offered by 今川義元 on the thirteenth anniversary of the death of his house's late lord, 大休宗休 (1468–1549) praises the dead man's brush and painting in parallel prose, with the line unattributed: 張顛驚虵入草、彷彿不同、心正則筆正、畫工者詩工, 張顛's startled snake into the grass, a likeness yet unlike; the heart upright, the brush upright; the painting fine, the poem fine [59][60]. The date fits the death of 今川氏輝 in the third month of 1536 [61]. An installation address for a Zen monk, dated 1610, uses the four characters the same way, 心正筆正, among praises of the man [62].

1594. A renga link. In a thousand-verse sequence of 1594 by the renga masters 紹巴 and 昌叱, in a copy of 1595, the verse not to heed remonstrance: that is the way of the world (its middle taken from the text layer) is capped by 昌叱's whether it is the trace of an upright brush, who can say (たゝしき筆のあととしもいさ), and the poets' note says: 柳公権か筆諫に心正則筆正也いさめにしたかはぬはたゝしからさる筆跡なり, in Liu Gongquan's remonstrance by the brush, "when the heart is upright, the brush is upright": not to heed remonstrance is a brush-trace that is not upright [63]. A later manuscript copies the note (§ Notes).

才葉抄. The calligraphy teaching 才葉抄, printed in the 群書類従 as the oral teaching of 藤原教長 Fujiwara no Norinaga (1109–1180?), cites the Old History's form as the text [13][64]:

手跡にて人の心の程は被知也されは相構て異様に不可書故に本文曰用筆在心〻正則筆正と也

By one's hand the measure of one's heart is known; so take care not to write in odd ways. Hence the text says: the use of the brush lies in the heart; when the heart is upright, the brush is upright. The teaching is dated 1177 at its head, but the passage stands in the part of the text that the scholarship calls a later augmentation, and the same part names 弘誓院, 藤原教家 (1194–1255), as a hand people lately imitate [65][66][67]. So the passage is medieval, of a date not settled.

The Edo period. 林羅山 (1583–1657) sets it beside 王羲之's 心在筆先, the heart goes before the brush, as mechanism [17][68]:

王右軍謂心在筆先。柳誠懸曰心正則筆正。蓋人心使肩腕、又使手指、其所把持者筆也。方寸中有方有圓、其所運動得其正、筆隨之而文字之方圓無所不可也。是不止筆勢字體而已、事事皆然。

The heart moves the shoulder and the wrist, and moves the fingers, and what they hold is the brush. When its motion is upright, the brush follows, and the square and round of the characters are all as they should be. This is not so of brushwork alone: it is so of everything. 貝原益軒 Kaibara Ekken, in his 和俗童子訓 of 1710, a book on teaching children [69], opens his rules for writing with the old saying that writing is the picture of the heart, 古人書は心畫なりといへり, which 費瀛 gives to 揚雄, and with Liu, and gives the aim of writing as plain and upright and easy to read [70][31][71]: 故に手跡の邪正にて心の邪正あらはる。…むかし柳公權も心正けれは筆正しといへり。…故に書の本意は只平正にしてよみやすきを宗とす, so the crookedness or uprightness of the hand shows the crookedness or uprightness of the heart … Liu long ago said, when the heart is upright, the brush is upright … so the true aim of writing is only to be plain and upright and easy to read. The Shingon monk 慈雲 Jiun (1718–1804, or 1805) in his lectures of 1773–75 gives it as a calligrapher's saying, adds of itself, and grants it: 書家書法を論ずる。心正しければ筆おのつから正しと云。其理あるべし, the calligraphers, discussing the method of writing, say that when the heart is upright the brush is upright of itself. There must be reason in it [72][73]. The calligrapher 森川竹窓 Morikawa Chikusō (1763–1830) reads it, like 戈守智, of posture: 射と書と相似たり　かたち正しけれはかならすあたる也　柳公權か心正筆正といふも此論なり, archery and writing are alike: if the form is upright, it surely hits; Liu's heart upright, brush upright is this argument [74][75]. 松浦静山 Matsura Seizan (1760–1841) copied 戈守智's passage into his talks on the sword and carried it there: holding the brush first is, in swordsmanship, how the sword is held [35][76]. And 市河米庵 Ichikawa Beian (1779–1858) set 心正則筆正 at the head of a page of five-character phrases to brush in his handbook of 1843 [77][78].

The line in English

1898. Herbert Giles. A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, p. 510, under Liu Kung-ch'üan [14]:

"How can you write so exquisitely?" asked the Emperor Mu Tsung. "I guide my pen," replied Liu, "by my heart. I keep my heart correct, and my pen follows." His Majesty changed countenance, for he felt that this was a hint to himself.

It is the Old History's form, with 筆 as pen, 正 as correct, and the remonstrance as a hint to himself.

1913. O. W. Bouldin. Translating 慈雲's sermon: The writer speaks of the art of writing and says that if the heart is right the pen will naturally go right. There is a reason for this. [24].

1920. Rudolf Lange. A Japanese–German dictionary, under 心: kokoro tadash'kereba, fude tadashi — wenn das Herz, die Gesinnung gerade ist, ist die Feder, Handschrift gerade, with gerade, straight, for heart and pen alike [79].

1933. Osvald Sirén. If the heart is upright, the brush is firm, given as the Kangxi emperor's [25].

1984 and after. Budō. John Stevens's life of the swordsman 山岡鉄舟 Yamaoka Tesshū (1836–1888) [80], first published in 1984 and read here in its printing of 1994, prints a scroll of the five characters with the caption When a Chinese emperor asked a renowned calligrapher how to hold the brush he was told: If your mind is correct, the brush will be correct (Kokoro tadashikereba sunawachi fude tadashi). This holds true for any of the Ways [22]; in the revised edition of his Sacred Calligraphy of the East, of 1988, the same scroll is plate 212, The secret of Zen calligraphy … By Tesshū, from a private collection in Japan, the attribution his [81]. In 1987 he gave it as If your mind is correct, then your technique will be correct [82]. William Scott Wilson, writing of Musashi in 2004: When the Mind is correct, the brush will be also. 心正即筆正 [83]. In the 1994 caption the emperor's question becomes how to hold the brush, and the answer a principle of every Way; the other three name no emperor, and none of the four names Liu.

What is not a source

The line is Liu's, in both Tang histories, and the emperor in both is 穆宗 [1][2]. The 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 at kotobank names the emperor as 徳宗, and the 紹巴 commentaries and the painting's title in the 翰林五鳳集 as 太宗; neither is the emperor of this exchange in the histories [3][53][36]. Sirén gives it to the Kangxi emperor [25]; the Chinese books read here give it to Liu. 張国龍 Zhang Guolong in 2020 holds that the line was a remonstrance and that later theory of calligraphy lost its first sense [84]; the histories tell it as both, an answer about the brush that the emperor took as remonstrance [1][2].

Notes

誠懸. The Wikisource transcription of the Old History gives Liu's courtesy name as 誠懇; the 1872 collation reads 公權字誠懸 in its lemma with no variant noted, as the New History does [1][26][2].

The four-character form. 心正筆正 drops the particle; it is the form of 横川景三's letter, the 1610 address, 森川竹窓 and 梁同書 [11][62][74][10]. Wilson prints 即 for 則, the same sense [83].

A sibling saying. Kokoro tadashikereba koto tadashi, if the heart is right the deeds will be right, in Daniel Crump Buchanan's book of Japanese proverbs of 1965, has koto, deeds, for fude [85]. 藤井乙男's 『諺語大辞典』 of 1910 enters 心正シケレバ事正シ beside our line, sourcing it to the 讀書續錄, 心如水之源、源淸則流淸、心正則事正, and our line to the 書法正傳 [86].

Copies. A manuscript of the Edo period, 『連歌合集』 (National Diet Library 2532276, scan 33), copies the 兩吟千句 note. An undated manuscript, 『梅北集』 (2553990, scan 24), joins the New History's answer to the Old History's close, 公權筆法對曰心正則筆正筆正乃可法矣穆宗知其以筆諫也. Both are read at the leaf and stand outside the record above.

蘇軾's wording. 張国龍 quotes 蘇軾's sentence as 理固宜然 [84]; the printed leaf and the text databases read here give 理固然也 [8][7]. In the next sentence the 1891–97 print reads 雎盱 where the text databases give 睢盱 [8][7].

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of When the Heart Is Upright, the Brush Is Upright (kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
心正則筆正VB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of When the Heart Is Upright, the Brush Is Upright (kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
心正則筆正VC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of When the Heart Is Upright, the Brush Is Upright (kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
心正則筆正VD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of When the Heart Is Upright, the Brush Is Upright (kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
心正則筆正VS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

河海抄 (1360s) and 花鳥余情 (1472), the Genji commentaries before 細流抄, for whether they carry the gloss: the National Diet Library's manuscripts are in a cursive its text layer does not read, and no typeset of them was opened [87]. The Kamakura 紫明抄 itself, which the 水原紫明抄 read here is not [88].

The copy of 才葉抄 at the 阪本龍門文庫, with colophons of 1337 and 1415, for whether it carries the passage [89].

The Old History at a printed leaf of its own; it is read here in a text database and through its collation. 項穆's 書法雅言 at a printed leaf.

The first edition of John Stevens's Sacred Calligraphy of the East (1981), for whether plate 212 and its caption stand there; the copy read here is the revised edition of 1988, and the Internet Archive holds only that.

The 起倒流 text whose words John Stevens renders If your heart is correct, your technique will be correct in The Way of Judo (2013).

Five cursive glyphs in the middle of the 兩吟千句 verse before the note, taken here from the text layer.

English books seen only in the Internet Archive's search: Ronald Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi (1994), and an article in Archives of Asian Art 43 (1990), both with If the heart is upright, the brush will be upright; Sirén's Chinese Painting (1956), with Giles's words and brush for pen; and Amy McNair's The Upright Brush (1998), known here by its title.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

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  89. 金子馨, 「四天王寺大学恩頼堂文庫蔵『筆体口伝』について」, 『書学書道史研究』 24, 2014, pp. 43–57, read in the text layer. https://doi.org/10.11166/shogakushodoshi.2014.43

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · the writer (Claude), 2026-11-03, citations: every address in the history run through the citation checker; the four that differed judged at the page (翰林五鳳集 p. 242, 武術叢書 p. 405, 見桃録 pp. 124–125 standing; Stevens 1994's plate moved to the unnumbered page after p. 97); addresses the checker could not open were opened at the leaf in the reading sittings; not a fresh-context check · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-11-03, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source: round 1 FAIL from one reader on two wrong facts (a fifteenth-century floor the undated 才葉抄 does not allow; 益軒's 平正, which keeps upright), both conceded at the source; round 2 PASS from both, no wrong fact; their wordings applied (remonstrance, not rebuke; 梁同書's firm hold; 蘇軾's veiled remonstrance; the 文明-era copy as about), the 1910 proverb dictionary read at the leaf, and the 1610 address's heading read on the page before

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · November 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 心正則筆正 (kokoro tadashikereba fude tadashi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kokoro-tadashikereba-fude-tadashi.