Endurance (Shinbō)

In 1985, the daughter of famous calligrapher Bundō Shunkai donated to the NGP three calligraphies her father created in the 1950s and 1960s, mounted on large panels. Bundō, who continued the calligraphic traditions of Zen, was an important figure in modern Japanese calligraphy. He himself was a monk of the Tendai school of Buddhism. The work Endurance is a two-part screen showing the characters Endurance accompanied by a text written in the extreme cursive script known as sōsho (“grass writing”).