JAPANESE ART > PAINTINGS ON SHIKISHI > SOUL

Lot 00562
N.1 painting on shikishi

Keisen

SOUL

Year: 2019
Condition: very good
Size: 24 x 27 cm

SOLD

The ideogram depicted in this beautiful shodo (書道) calligraphy work in Japanese is pronounced "tamashii" (たましい) and its meaning derives from the "hun" (魂) of the Chinese tradition, which represents the highest human spiritual aspect: what in Western culture is mostly referred to as "soul" or "spirit". In the tradition of the Far East, the concept of hun (魂) has its counterpart, called "po" (魄), which represents the "genetic memory" of the body or, in other words, the "physical soul".

Hun and po share in their graphic representation the radical 鬼 that depicts a demon and that is composed of a voluminous head that surmounts a vaporous and indistinct shape and drags a kind of hook, used to capture the souls of the living.

The work, made on a thick shikishi (色紙) cardboard with golden edges by the female calligrapher Keisen (恵泉), is in very good condition.

Back to home page »