Single Line Calligraphy: Originally Not One Thing

Deiryu is arguably the most important Zen monk-painter of the Showa period (roughly the years between the two world wars). He was the pupil of the Zen master Nantenbo, generally regarded as the best Zen calligrapher of the preceding Taisho era. In Zen, the teacher-pupil relationship is the primary vehicle of doctrinal transmission, and the pairing of this brushed calligraphy with the one by Nantembo to the left demonstrates this special instructional practice within the Zen sect. Despite his youthful promise as calligrapher, Deriyu’s own style seems to have been largely shaped by his teacher.

Deiryu’s boldly brushed calligraphy declaims a central Zen doctrinal belief in the oneness of the universe and its non-dual nature. Reading "Originally not one Thing," the five-character inscription is deployed vertically in the so-called "one line" format, a preferred arrangement favored by Zen calligraphers for centuries. The calligraphy exhibits a masterful sense of placement, compression and expansion, and control and release in overall composition and individual character strokes.