Nakahara Nantenbō (1839-1925), Calligraphy.
Every Day Is a Good Day
Nakahara Nantenbo (1839–1925)
Hanging Scroll, Ink on paper
This monumental calligraphy by the Rinzai Zen master Nakahara Nantenbo presents the five-character phrase “Every day is a good day” (nichinichi kore konichi). Written when the artist was eighty-three years old by traditional Japanese reckoning, the work embodies the physical force, directness, and cultivated imperfection that distinguish Nantenbo’s late brushwork.
The phrase is traditionally associated with the Chinese Chan master Yunmen Wenyan. Yunmen asked his monks not to speak of the days that had already passed but to say something about the days to come. When no answer was offered, he replied himself: “Every day is a good day.”
The statement is not a simple declaration that every day will be pleasant. In Zen, “good” and “bad” are judgments imposed upon experience after the fact. A good day may contain hardship, loss, uncertainty, or disappointment. What makes it “good” is that it is encountered completely, without clinging to the past, anticipating the future, or demanding that the present become something other than what it is.
The phrase therefore forms a natural continuation of the preceding calligraphy by Kameda Bosai. Bosai’s “Heaven and earth know no passage of years” releases the viewer from conventional measurements of time; Nantenbo’s “Every day is a good day” returns the viewer to the immediacy of each day. One work removes the calendar, while the other restores the present moment.
Nantenbo’s execution gives the familiar Zen saying extraordinary physical presence. The first character, “day”, dominates the upper portion of the scroll. Its thick, nearly circular enclosure is formed from dense black ink, but its edges remain ragged and irregular. The brush leaves visible streaks and fine trails as it moves across the paper. The character is monumental yet imperfect—alive because it preserves the resistance of the paper and the changing pressure of the hand.
The second "day" is drastically reduced, compressed into two abbreviated masses of ink connected by fine vertical traces. The repetition of the same character at radically different scales destabilizes any predictable rhythm. “Day after day” is not expressed mechanically: no two days, and no two written forms, are ever identical.
The central character “is” opens into a dynamic structure of broad diagonals, sharp turns, and exposed white paper. Nantenbo's brush alternates between saturated black and pronounced flying white, allowing the paper to cut through the stroke. The character seems less constructed than struck into existence.
The final two characters, “good day”, become increasingly expansive. “Good” is compressed and forceful, its components colliding in a dense concentration of ink. The final "day" descends toward the bottom of the scroll in a broad circular movement, echoing the first character but remaining visibly distinct. Its lower curve is prolonged into a sweeping taper, bringing the five-character sequence to a powerful yet open conclusion.
Nantenbo believed that a large character had to be written in a single breath. If the writer spoke or allowed concentration to disperse, he explained, the character would “die.” One must enlarge the spirit, draw from the hara—the physical and spiritual center of the body—and complete the character before that energy escapes. The present work records precisely such a concentrated event. Ink, breath, bodily movement, and awareness become inseparable.
The blunt beginnings, frayed endings, irregular contours, and thick, “meaty” strokes are characteristic of Nantenbo’s calligraphy. He rejected the polished elegance of the professional calligrapher in favor of coarseness, speed, and immediacy. Yet the work is not uncontrolled. The enormous first and final characters frame the composition, while the three intervening characters form a fluctuating central passage. Monumentality and compression, blackness and exposed paper, impact and release remain carefully balanced.
Born into a samurai family, Nantenbo entered Buddhist life as a child and became an influential Rinzai Zen master and reformer. He acquired his famous name from an imposing staff (bō) cut from an old nandina tree (nanten). He used the staff while training students and became associated with the warning: “If you speak, thirty blows; if you do not speak, thirty blows.” The apparent contradiction was intended to force the student beyond dependence upon verbal answers.
His painting and calligraphy served the same purpose. They did not explain Zen through polished images or elegant language; instead, they confronted the viewer with the immediate evidence of an action. The splash of ink, the drag of a dry brush, the collision between black and white, and the imbalance between characters all resist passive looking.
Nantenbo produced most of his art during the final decades of his life. His rough, gestural approach helped carry the traditions of Zen bokuseki, or “traces of ink,” into the twentieth century and later attracted the attention of avant-garde calligraphers and artists. At eighty-three, his brush retained astonishing energy, but its true force lies not in physical strength alone. It lies in the unity of body, concentration, and action.
Within Time Well Wasted, this calligraphy offers a direct invitation. After leaving behind the calendar of “Heaven and earth know no passage of years,” the viewer encounters the value of the present day. To spend time with ink painting is not to withdraw from life, but to return to it more attentively. Every brushstroke occurs only once; every day is likewise complete and irretrievable. Seen without distraction, each may become a good day.
Inscribed “The eighty-three-year-old Nantenbo” , with seals reading “Hakugaikutsu” and “Toshu”.
Image: 44 1/2 × 12 inches (113 × 30.5 cm).
Scroll: 70 × 13 inches (177.8 × 33 cm).
References
- Princeton University Art Museum, “Staff,” Nakahara Nantenbo, 1921, object no. 2008-157.
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Daruma Facing a Cave Wall while Meditating,” Nakahara Nantenbo, 1916.
3. Matthew Welch, “Nakahara Nantenbo,” excerpted from Audrey Yoshiko Seo with Stephen Addiss, The Art of Twentieth-Century Zen: Paintings and Calligraphy by Japanese Masters,
This work was featured in the special exhibition Time Well Wasted: Five Hundred Years of Japanese Ink Painting, held at Michaan’s Auctions from August 16 to 21, 2026, and is illustrated on page 125-129 of the accompanying book by Jingwei Zeng.
Image has horizontal creasing. For condition report and additional photos, please contact the Asian Art Department.
