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

At the Tang court Xuanzong composed the Rainbow Robe and Feather Dress, the ni chang yu yi qu, for Yang Guifei to dance, a song and costume meant to summon the immortals at a banquet. The chang, the lower robe, became the stuff of legend, silk and feather for a goddess borrowed from heaven.

Common words & phrases

• 衣裳 clothes
• 霓裳 rainbow robe
• 罗裳 silk clothes
• 云裳 cloud robe

Read the story behind the character

In a closet a set of yi chang, clothes, waits mended, while a designer names a line ni chang after the rainbow robe and a seamstress works luo chang, silk skirts, for the troupe. The word yun chang, cloud robe, titles a boutique. The character is the skirt and the finery that old poems still lend to new cloth.

Why this character belongs on skin

In the oldest poems it moves: 霓裳, rainbow skirts, the robes of immortals dancing on the moon; 衣裳, simply clothes, the character drawn for the way fabric falls from the waist. 裳 is the ancient lower garment — the skirt of a gentleman's court robes, the pleated drape that swayed when the scholar bowed. Clothing in Chinese thought was never mere covering; it was civility made visible, rite and rank and self-respect cut from cloth. The Book of Songs sings of green jackets and yellow skirts, lovesick over a hem. And there is a gentleness in the word — it sounds like the rustle of silk, the swish of a dancer's train, the curtain moved by someone entering. Vestments, the priest's chasuble, the wedding dress kept in tissue paper for fifty years: every culture wraps its sacred moments in fabric. This is the tattoo for the sensualist, the person who believes beauty is not vanity but courtesy to the world. Twelve strokes light as a hem in wind. Wear it, and let everything you put on over it be chosen like a vow.