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

Etymology & Meaning · 字义溯源

2 · The Character: 醒 醒 (xǐng) is built on 酉, the wine jar, with 星 as phonetic. The Shuowen Jiezi (《说文解字》 酉部) glosses it '醒，醉解也' — the undoing of drunkenness. It is a word that begins in a hangover and ends in enlightenment. The Zuo Zhuan (《左传·僖公二十三年》) has the exiled prince Chong'er '醉而遣之。醒，以戈逐子犯' — they got him drunk and shipped him out; he woke and chased his uncle with a halberd. The line everyone knows is Qu Yuan's, in the Chuci 《楚辞·渔父》: '举世皆浊我独清，众人皆醉我独醒' — the whole world is muddy, I alone am clear; all are drunk, I alone am awake. From there come 觉醒, 清醒, 醒悟. The Hanshu (《汉书·蓋宽饶传》) even jokes '次公醒而狂，何必酒也'. 醒 is a free morpheme. Honest disclosure: its literal root is sobering up from liquor, so 醒酒 is heard before 'awakening' — and the man who spoke Qu Yuan's line drowned himself.

Cultural Story

Qu Yuan, in the Fisherman, declares that while all the world is drunk he alone is 醒, clear-eyed and clean amid a muddied age, and the line became the cry of the loyal exile. The 醒 was sobriety of spirit before it was waking from sleep. From that Chu elegy the character kept the pain of a man who sees what others will not.

Common words & phrases

• 醒来 wake up · awake
• 清醒 sober · clear-headed · lucid
• 提醒 remind · warn · prompt
• 醒悟 realize · come to see · awaken
• 觉醒 awaken · wake up · arouse
• 醒目 eye-catching · conspicuous

Read the story behind the character

A phone 提醒 lights up with tomorrow's train, a sleeper 醒来 to the alarm, and an ad keeps its type 醒目 on the platform poster. A friend 醒悟 at last to the scam. The 清醒 of a clear head guides the day. The character now blinks on a screen and a sign, the old sober clarity of the exiled poet carried into a reminder and a sudden seeing-through.

Why this character belongs on skin

The character 醒 began its life smelling of rice wine: its radical is the wine vessel, and its first meaning was the sobering—dawn after the feast, head cool, regrets filed in order. Only later did it widen into the great sense it holds now: to wake, to become aware, to come to one's senses. The Buddha sat under a tree and did essentially this—blew off the intoxication of illusion and saw the world at full strength. Waking is not once in a life. It happens in small doses: the morning you notice you have stopped loving a lie, the afternoon you look up from your phone and the light on the floorboards is unbearably beautiful. That is the character working. Ink it where you will see it, and let it ask its one blunt question every day: are you awake yet, or still at the party?