The Calligrapher — Zhào Mèngfǔ 赵孟頫

Yuan master whose elegant regular and running script revived classical tradition.

Yuan calligrapher (1254–1322), master of regular script/running script/cursive script — Yuan reviver of classical elegance who could write any script beautifully and did. Yuan dynasty

Cultural Story

The 易经's 乾 hexagram reaches the ninth line with 或跃在渊, the dragon either leaps in the abyss or rests, a picture of poised power choosing its moment. 跃 is that leap, the bound of 跳跃 and the surge of 飞跃. To 踊跃 is to raise the hands as the dragon raises from the deep. The dragon's poised leap is a lesson in choosing the moment to act.

Common words & phrases

• 跳跃 jump · leap · bound · hop
• 活跃 active · lively · vigorous
• 飞跃 leap · fly · quantum leap
• 踊跃 eager · enthusiastic · jump
• 跃然 vivid · lifelike · leap out
• 跃迁 transition · jump

Read the story behind the character

At a lab, a particle 跃迁, transitions, between states while a market stays 活跃, lively, and a crowd 踊跃, eagerly, signs up for a cause. A fish 跳跃, leaps, in a pond and a face 跃然, springs to life, on canvas. The dragon's leap from the abyss now powers a chart and a cheer. The transition and the cheer are the dragon's motion downsized to a lab and a crowd.

Why this character belongs on skin

The leap is the only honest punctuation in a life. Before the foot leaves the earth it knows nothing; after, it knows flight. The character carries the foot-radical because courage lives in the legs, not the head—you do not think your way across the ravine, you leap. Sun Tzu watched the stag bound from the arrow and wrote of timing. The lover who crosses a room to take a hand has already leapt farther than any soldier. We calcify in the doorway, rehearsing the jump until the moment dies; but the body remembers what the mind forgets, that the air holds you for the length of a breath. Faith is a leap with no ground promised on the far side. Put this ink where your pulse is fastest, and when you stand at the edge of some necessary thing, let the old foot-radical remind you: the landing has never been the point.