The Calligrapher — Ōuyáng Xún 欧阳询

Tang regular-script master whose 'Ouyang style' is a basic learning model.

Tang calligrapher (557–641), master of regular script/running script — Tang codifier of regular script; crisp, architectural strokes you could measure with a ruler. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

驭 (yù) shows a hand, 又, guiding a 馬, “horse.” 《説文解字》 gives 使馬也, “to make a horse go,” the earliest word for driving a team. From reins it broadened to mastering any force.

Common words & phrases

• 驾驭 control · drive · master
• 驭手 driver · horseman
• 统驭 control · govern

Read the story behind the character

驭 means control and command. We 驾驭 (master, control) a difficult situation, a 驭手 (driver, horseman) guides the cart, and a leader must 统驭 (govern) a large organization. The character keeps the reins in hand.

Why this character belongs on skin

驭 is the art of holding reins—horse radical joined to the hand that governs, one of the six classical arts a young aristocrat had to master before he was taken seriously. Confucius studied it; the charioteer was the warrior's pilot, and mastery meant neither slackness nor brutality but the living negotiation between force and feel, hands that talk to a thousand pounds of muscle. Kings were judged by it: 驭下, to rein one's subordinates well, power as horsemanship. The Daoists pushed further—the charioteer who watches the road, not the horse, is their image of the unclenched mind. We all drive something: a temper, a habit, a team, a body, a grief. The question is never whether you hold reins but how. To ink 驭 is to claim the reins on purpose—discipline without deadening, control without choke. Place it on the back of the hand or the wrist, where the grip forms. Light hands, strong will. Ride.