The Calligrapher — Sū Shì 苏轼

Song literatus whose spontaneous running script shaped the literati ideal.

Song calligrapher (1037–1101), master of running script/regular script — Song poet-statesman and polymath whose expressive running script made personality, not rules, the point. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

Bai Juyi, in his invitation to his friend Liu, writes of 新醅 wine, the green-flecked young brew still unfiltered, set by a little red-clay stove against the coming snow. The 醅 was the fresh, cloudy liquor before the press, hospitality in its rawest state. From that snowbound invitation the character kept the warmth of a drink not yet cleared, offered before it was finished.

Common words & phrases

• 新醅 new wine
• 绿醅 green wine
• 醅酒 unfiltered wine

Read the story behind the character

A craft brewery pours a 新醅 at the tasting bar and labels its cloudy 绿醅 on the menu, while a cellar keeps the 醅酒 of last season for the regulars. The character now sits on a tap and a bottle. The unfiltered young wine of Bai Juyi's snowy evening has become the cloudy pour a drinker chooses for its roughness and its green-gold fleck.

Why this character belongs on skin

Du Fu, flat broke, once apologized to a guest: I have only unstrained wine to offer you. The character means exactly that — wine still cloudy with the lees, 醅, not yet clarified, poured rough and honest from the jar. It was the drink of the poor and the hurried, and somehow also the most tender: to serve someone your unfinished wine is to admit you have nothing better and were glad they came anyway. The old poets kept coming back to it. White wrote of green-ant 醅, the froth floating on the new brew; Du Fu's apology became one of the most beloved lines in Chinese poetry, because the guest understood — the cloudy cup held more welcome than a banquet could. There is a whole ethic in it. Hospitality is not polish; it is what you have, offered without armor. To wear 醅 is to claim that rough candor for yourself: unfiltered, unstrained, warm before perfect. Come as you are; the wine isn't finished either.