The Calligrapher — Huáng Tíngjiān 黄庭坚

Song master of elongated, radical running and cursive script.

Song calligrapher (1045–1105), master of running script/cursive script — Song master of long, sweeping, deliberately stretched running strokes. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

丑 is the second earthly branch and the Ox of the zodiac, the hour of the ox plodding home at one in the morning. On the 京剧 stage 丑 is the comic role, the painted face who jokes and steals the scene, the clown, never the hero. The 史記 lists 丑 as a year; villagers once named their sons by it. Beauty had nothing to do with it.

Common words & phrases

• 丑陋 ugly · hideous
• 丑闻 scandal · disgrace
• 小丑 clown · buffoon
• 丑恶 ugly · vicious · repulsive
• 出丑 to make a fool of oneself · to disgrace oneself
• 丑角 clown · comic role

Read the story behind the character

丑闻 is tonight's political scandal scrolling past; 小丑 is the birthday-party hire and the Joker on a poster. 丑陋 describes the building and the deed. 出丑 is what happens when you trip at the podium. The zodiac sense survives only at New Year, when 丑牛 prints on red paper. Otherwise the character has become pure embarrassment, the face that slips, the story that leaks.

Why this character belongs on skin

In the theater he is the fool with the painted face; in the calendar he is the ox, the second of the turning branches—丑 carries both, the clown and the beast of burden, and the honesty of each. The role of 丑 in Chinese opera is the one permitted to speak truth, because who fears the fool? And the ox labors without apology, ugly in the useful way only the earth knows. A tattoo of this character is an embrace of the unpretentious self, the face you make when the mask slips. It says you will not polish yourself into a lie. Let it sit where you can laugh at it. The 丑 is not shame but freedom—the right to be awkward, animal, true, and quietly wise in a way the beautiful never are.