The Calligrapher — Mǐ Fú 米芾

Song eccentric genius of dynamic, 'flying' running script.

Song calligrapher (1051–1107), master of running script — Song eccentric genius ('crazy Zhang, idiot Mi') whose running script alternates discipline with glee. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

扫 is to sweep, and the 木蘭詩 has the girl 当户理云鬓 before she goes to war — order made by the broom and the comb. 扫墓 is the clearing of the ancestors' graves at Qingming, the family's spring obligation. The hand with 帚, a broom, is the stroke that cleans. It is the tidy and the clear.

Common words & phrases

• 打扫 clean · sweep · tidy up · clean up
• 扫地 sweep the floor · sweep · clean
• 扫描 scan · scanning
• 扫除 sweep away · clear · eliminate · remove
• 扫兴 spoil the fun · dampen · disappoint
• 扫墓 tomb-sweeping · visit grave

Read the story behind the character

扫 is the clean and the kill: 打扫 the floor, 扫地 the daily pass, 扫描 the barcode, 扫除 the campaign against pests. 扫兴 is the friend who ruins the mood, 扫墓 the April trip to the hill. It names the stroke that orders a room and the one that empties a mood.

Why this character belongs on skin

The broom moves. The dust that gathered while you slept is gathered again and sent out the door — sǎo is to sweep, to clear, to make the ground clean for what comes next. In the monastery the sweeping is the prayer; the monk cleans the courtyard not to be finished but to be present. We accumulate — things, grudges, the small ash of old hurts — and forget the liberation of the cleared floor. To carry sǎo is to honor the discipline of beginning clean, the daily courage to brush the past out the gate. Let this mark rest where you have made yourself new, the quiet ritual of one who sweeps the threshold each morning so the day might enter unburdened, light, and ready to be lived.