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

曷 is the old 'why.' 曷为 'for what reason' the plaintive question; 曷胜 'how could one bear it' the cry of grief. The word is inquiry as longing — the question thrown at heaven. The Shuowen sees the sun and the what. A single character for the 'why' the exiled poet asks the empty sky, and gets no answer but the wind.

Common words & phrases

• 曷为 why · for what reason
• 曷胜 how could one bear

Read the story behind the character

曷为 is the literary 'why'; 曷胜 the rare 'how to bear.' You will not say it now. The word survives in the classical question and the elegy — the 'why' flung upward. From the ode to the footnote, 曷 is the old interrogative, the plaintive 'for what reason' the ancients raised to heaven and left hanging, unanswered, above the cold plain.