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

桂 is the cassia or osmanthus, the fragrant tree the 楚辭 fills with immortals and the moon — the 月中有桂, a cassia growing on the moon, clipped by the hare. 桂林, the forest of cassia, lent its name to a city of peaks. The character is scent and the lunar garden, the tree that perfumes the night sky.

Common words & phrases

• 桂花 osmanthus · sweet olive
• 桂林 Guilin
• 桂树 laurel tree · cassia
• 肉桂 cinnamon
• 桂圆 longan
• 桂冠 laurel · crown of laurel

Read the story behind the character

桂 is the smell of autumn: 桂花 the tiny orange blossoms steeped in tea and made into cake, 肉桂 the cinnamon in a braise, 桂圆 the longan in a soup. 桂林 is the karst tourist city; 桂冠 the laurel on a winner. The character is perfume, spice, and place — the fragrant tree that traveled from the moon to the plate.

Why this character belongs on skin

On the moon, old myth says, a cassia tree grows that no axe can fell, its bark sweet with the smell of rain. 桂 is that tree — laurel, cinnamon, the fragrance the immortals wear. To the scholar it meant the crown of success; to the lover, the scent that lingers on a sleeve long after she has gone. There is something stubborn in its green, a refusal to be cut down. Ink this character and you carry an orchard of small victories and unbidden memories, the scent that returns you to a room you thought you'd left. It is tenderness with roots. Place it where your pulse is nearest the surface, so the fragrance seems to rise from your own blood when the cold comes, a private laurel no one can strip from you.