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

The 左传 records Yanzi's rebuke that in the Qi market 屦贱踊贵, shoes were cheap but 踊, the artificial foot for the amputated, were dear, because Lord Jing's 刖 punishment had maimed so many. 踊跃 once meant to leap with the hands; the price of a wooden foot made the word bitter. The dear wooden foot was the bitter price of a law that maimed too freely.

Common words & phrases

• 踊跃 enthusiastic · leap
• 踊跃 jump · be eager

Read the story behind the character

At a fundraiser, a crowd 踊跃, eagerly, signs up to give while a class 踊跃, volunteers, for a trip and a buyer 踊跃, jumps, at a sale. The character that once counted the maimed has softened to pure enthusiasm, hands raised in cheer rather than a stump fitted with wood. 踊跃 now means only yes. The raised hands of cheer have forgotten the stump that once named them.

Why this character belongs on skin

Put a foot radical on a word for surging water and you get this: 踊, to leap, to spring, the body turned into a wave for one glorious instant. It lives in 踊跃 — leaping with joy, volunteering eagerly, hands shooting up before the question is finished — and in the old rites, where mourners 踊跃 beside the coffin, leaping in grief, because sorrow too needs the body to move. That doubleness is the truth of the character: the same spring in the legs carries both the celebration and the ache. Joy and grief are neighbors; both refuse to sit still. There is the leap of the salmon up the falls, the leap of the bride into the lake in her dress, the leap of faith Kierkegaard would not stop talking about. Nothing important happens standing flat-footed. 踊跃不息 — leaping without pause. This is the tattoo for the one who says yes too fast and regrets it never: the traveler, the lover, the last one on the dance floor. Fourteen strokes mid-air. The ink cannot jump, but it can remember that you did.