The Calligrapher — Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿

Tang master of robust regular script; co-creator of the enduring 'Yan style'.

Tang calligrapher (709–784), master of regular script/running script — the Tang moral paragon whose upright, muscular regular script became the model of Chinese integrity in writing. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

Cui means high and looming, the Shuo Wen glossing it a tall mountain. It appears as cui wei (lofty, towering) for crags that dwarf the traveler, and cui wei (towering, high) for palace terraces in the Chu Ci. The sound also became a surname. The character carries the slight unease of something so tall it leans over you, majestic and a little threatening.

Common words & phrases

• 崔嵬 lofty · towering
• 崔巍 towering · high

Read the story behind the character

A real-estate ad calls the new tower cui wei (towering, high) with sky gardens, and climbers describe the cui wei (lofty, towering) north buttress as serious. A colleague named Cui laughs that his cui surname is literally lofty. You caption a cliff photo so cui you get dizzy, and a history doc notes the Cui family manor's cui wei gate once impressed the whole county.

Why this character belongs on skin

The tall mountain does not announce itself; it simply is. 崔 is the lofty peak the traveler sees from far off and knows he will not climb today, perhaps not ever, and is somehow glad of its existence. The mountain-radical stacks height upon height; the ancients paired it with the word for massive, for the thing that dwarfs and does not apologize. The Confucian gentleman is 崔—austere, above the small weather of complaint, a standard the village measures itself against without resentment. We mistake height for distance, but the true peak draws the pilgrim; it does not repel him. Love at its best is a 崔, something to climb toward your whole life without arriving. Ink this where you set your standards, and let the lofty character ask only: are you aiming at something worthy of the climb?