WARRIOR SPIRIT Chinese Character / Japanese Kanji Wall Scroll

"Warrior Spirit"

Chinese / Japanese Kanji / old Korean Hanja Calligraphy Wall Scroll

This particular calligraphy is done in Xing-Kaishu (Running-Regular Script). This style features bold strokes in a flowing character form.

The main Chinese character at the top is "wu" (it's "bu" in Japanese, with the same meaning) which means warrior spirit or military, and it closely identified with Kung Fu (Gong Fu).

Below this martial character is an inscription that reads, "强身健体 陶冶情操 锻炼意志". This means, "Strengthen your body, relax your mind, train your spirit".
The remainder of the small characters say, "曹彬书于北京" which basically says, "Cao Bin's calligraphy, written in Beijing".

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Link: Options for custom Warrior-related Chinese/Japanese/Korean calligraphy are available here!

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About the calligrapher:

I met Cao Bin years ago, and long before his fame. At that time, his wife was running a small house cleaning business. One day she was tidying up my mother-in-law's home in Beijing and overheard that I am in the business of selling Chinese calligraphy and artwork. She asked if I'd like to meet her husband who was a pretty good calligrapher as she described him with modesty.

The next evening, I visited his modest studio and saw some really nice calligraphy and great black ink bamboo paintings that he'd just finished. After a lot of tea drinking and chatting, I asked if I could commission a few pieces.

Through the years, I would occasionally buy a few more pieces, not realizing how famous he had become. I might pop by his studio, only to hear from his wife that he was down in Anhui receiving an award for his calligraphy (calligraphy competitions are comparable to the fervor that sports championships have in the rest of the world). It finally dawned on me that this man I had known for about 7 years was a premier calligrapher for whom books had been published featuring his work, and the recipient of numerous awards.

The best part is that I have guanxi (a word that kind of means "special relationship" in Chinese), he gives me better prices than anyone else. This really fits well with my philosophy to offer high quality Asian artwork that everyone can afford.

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More about the artwork:

This is painted on xuan paper (often incorrectly called "rice paper"). The raw artwork was then taken to my workshop in east Beijing where the master mounter built it into a handmade wall scroll.