The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

取 showed a hand seizing an ear -- in war, the trophy of a slain foe, proof of the kill. From that came "to take". The related 娶, to take a wife, kept the same root. The Zhou bronze inscriptions record 取邑, the taking of a town. The word began as a hand on an enemy's ear and widened to every act of taking.

Common words & phrases

• 取得 obtain · gain · achieve · get
• 取消 cancel · call off · abolish
• 采取 adopt · take · employ
• 争取 strive for · fight for · win
• 提取 extract · withdraw · take out
• 获取 obtain · acquire · gain

Read the story behind the character

A flight is 取消 by the storm; the bank 提取 the cash from the machine. A committee 采取 the safer plan; a student 争取 a place she doubts she will win. The company 取得 the license; a reader 获取 the file behind the paywall. The word runs through the day's acquisitions and revocations -- what is taken, what is won, what is withdrawn, what is undone.

Why this character belongs on skin

In the old script, qǔ is a hand closing on an ear—the ear of a fallen enemy, taken as proof of a life ended and a self made larger by the taking. To qǔ is to seize, to fetch, to obtain what was not yours until your hand decided otherwise. The monk qǔ the scriptures across a continent of snow; the lover qǔ a name and makes it marriage. We are timid about taking, taught to wait—but qǔ is the verb of the alive, the one who reaches and receives. Ink it where you take hold—the hand, the hip—a mark that you are done waiting to be given. You went and got. The ear you bring home is your own, transformed. Take. It was always there to be taken.