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

Fan Zhongyan, banished to the lake country, climbed Yueyang Tower in 1046 and wrote that 'to look upon the things of this world, can one's feelings fail to differ?' The phrase lan wu zhi qing opens his famous essay. The character lan gathers seeing into a single sweep, to take in a whole view at once. Travelers lan mountains and rivers; emperors lan memorials from the throne. To lan was the leisurely, total glance of one who surveys a scene and weighs it.

Common words & phrases

• 展览 exhibition · exhibit · show
• 浏览 browse · skim · glance through
• 阅览 read · peruse · reading
• 一览 glance · bird's-eye view · overview
• 博览 extensive reading · exposition
• 参观 visit · tour · see

Read the story behind the character

A family spends Sunday at a zhan lan, an exhibition, of ink paintings; a commuter liu lan, browses, the news over coffee; a student yue lan, reads, in a hushed library. A tourist map promises a yi lan, a bird's-eye overview, of the old town, while a bo lan, a book fair, gathers every publisher under one roof. To can guan, to visit and view, a factory or a temple is still the same unhurried act the tower-climber practised a millennium ago.

Why this character belongs on skin

From the high pavilion the whole river rearranges itself into something you could never see from the bank. 览 is to take in the wide view, the eye ascending to gather a landscape at once — to read, to travel, to comprehend more than one small corner. The scholar who looks upon the world has looked and let it enter him. To wear 览 is to refuse the narrow life, to climb the stair and widen the gaze until petty griefs shrink to their true size. There is a particular clarity that only arrives at altitude. Let this character rest above your heart like a window you have chosen to open. Perspective is a discipline, not a luck. See far. Then carry the seeing with you, inked where your own eyes can't look but your mind always will, for the rest of your days.