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

穸 belongs almost entirely to one mournful compound: 窀穸, the grave — literally the deep night chamber where the dead are laid. Elegiac prose used it to speak of burial with grave dignity, and poets paired it with the long night as the traveler's last lodging. To be laid in the 窀穸 was the classical, tender way to say someone rested at last.

Common words & phrases

• 窀穸 grave · tomb
• 夜穸 night grave

Read the story behind the character

穸 today is a literary ghost met at funerals and in books. Tombstone inscriptions and elegiac couplets still read 窀穸 — the grave, the final chamber; memorial essays speak of a parent 归于夜穸, returned to the long night's rest. Most speakers meet the character exactly once in their lives, standing before stone.