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

Mencius spoke of the sage as 金聲而玉振之, bronze sounded at the opening, jade at the close, the music that begins and completes a thing. 振 is the jade's concluding ring, the shake that gathers an age into one clear note, and the rite ended on jade because jade, unlike bronze, refuses to sound until the hand has earned it.

Common words & phrases

• 振奋 to inspire · to exhilarate · inspired
• 振动 vibration · oscillation
• 振兴 to revitalize · to rejuvenate · to develop
• 震荡 to shake · to quake · turmoil
• 振作 to cheer up · to pull oneself together
• 共振 resonance

Read the story behind the character

A city 振興s its old quarter; a crowd is 振奮d; a phone 振動s in the pocket; two waves meet in 共振. The jade's ring is a policy and a buzz now. The shake that completed a ritual is the same shake that wakes a sleeper and rebuilds a district, and the buzzing phone is only the jade, reduced to a single impatient pulse.

Why this character belongs on skin

The drum struck at the gates of a sleeping city does not ask permission to wake the dead. This is the shake, the rousing, the sudden straightening of a spine that had forgotten it could stand. In the old histories a general would rouse his army — shake them loose from fear before the charge. The character carries the hand and the earthquake in one breath. There is a Christlike waking too: the friend called from the tomb, the moment when what was finished begins again. Ink this and you name the hour you refused to stay down. Not the calm, but the convulsion that precedes it. Let the skin remember the tremor before the rise — the world shakes, and you are the one who answers it standing.