The Calligrapher — Wáng Duó 王铎

Late-Ming cursive master of monumental, turbulent brushwork.

明末清初 calligrapher (1592–1652), master of cursive script/running script — late-Ming master of wet-ink, falling-and-rising running cursive. late Ming–early Qing

Cultural Story

In the Book of Songs, youths crossing the Zhen and Wei rivers at the spring fair give peonies to the girls they must leave, and since the flower sounds like the phrase for imminent parting it became the fixed token of farewell between lovers. Later gardens ranked the tree peony king and this herbaceous peony his prime minister.

Common words & phrases

• 芍藥 peony · herbaceous peony

Read the story behind the character

A garden blog photographs the late-May peony border at the botanical garden, the Traditional Medicine hall weighs dried peony root into a gentle formula for cramps, and a mother names her daughter Peony-fern after the herbal couplets in a costume drama. Students sketch its layered pinks in watercolor class.

Why this character belongs on skin

The peony is the peacock of flowers and China has never pretended otherwise. 芍 opens 芍药 — the herbaceous peony, flower of late spring, whose full-bloomed, heavy-headed, wine-red and blush-white blossoms were called by poets the wealth of the garden. In the imperial city of Luoyang, the peony was enthroned as national flower; whole dynasties of painters ruined themselves trying to render the layered silk of its petals. And beneath the spectacle, the root: white peony root is a celebrated medicine in Chinese tradition, said to nourish the blood, ease pain, soften what has grown harsh. Beauty that heals — that is the whole of this character. There is something defiant in it too: the peony blooms once, lavishly, without apology, and the poets kept writing that its brief glory shames a thousand cautious years. To wear sháo is to choose that doctrine — to bloom not politely but heavily, fragrantly, red as an open secret, and let the world adjust its eyes.