The Calligrapher — Guō Zhōngshù 郭忠恕

Five Dynasties–early Song master renowned for his seal script.

五代宋初 calligrapher (), master of seal script — known for 《汗简》. Five Dynasties–early Song

Cultural Story

陷 joins the hill radical 阝 with 臽. The Shuowen gives to sink, to fall into. Originally it described a pit or the collapse of ground; armies dug 陷阱 (traps) for enemies. Later it meant to frame someone or a defect that lets things fall through.

Common words & phrases

• 陷阱 trap
• 陷害 to frame
• 陷入 to fall into
• 缺陷 defect
• 凹陷 concave

Read the story behind the character

Hunters set a 陷阱 (trap), and rivals 陷害 (frame) each other in dramas. People 陷入 (fall into) debt, while a 缺陷 (defect) flaws a product. Cheeks 凹陷 (concave) with age. The character maps every kind of sinking.

Why this character belongs on skin

The ground gives way where it looked most solid, and the chariot wheel drops into the pit the enemy dug the night before. This character 陷 sets the earth radical beside a sound of descent, the sudden falling into — a trap, a marsh, a grief that opens under the foot. The warrior studies the ground before he advances; the Daoist warns that the lowest place is also the source. To fall is not the end; to be trapped is only to have mistaken the surface for the truth. To carry this word is to honor the times you went down and the strange clarity that came there. Let it rest where you have sunk deepest, a quiet record of the pit and the climbing out. The ink is the mark of one who has been buried and returned, proof that the earth that took you also taught you, and that nothing solid ever frightened you again.