The Calligrapher — Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿

Tang master of robust regular script; co-creator of the enduring 'Yan style'.

Tang calligrapher (709–784), master of regular script/running script — the Tang moral paragon whose upright, muscular regular script became the model of Chinese integrity in writing. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

優 is 人 with 憂's cousin, a man at ease, an actor who plays, the performer who entertained the court. The 說文 reads it as the actor, the abundant. 優伶 were the players; 優渥 the generous. The character was the entertainer before it was the grade. Excellence crept in later, the superior that now tops every report card.

Common words & phrases

• 优秀 excellent · outstanding
• 优美 graceful · beautiful
• 优点 advantage · merit
• 优惠 discount · favorable
• 优先 priority
• 优良 fine · good

Read the story behind the character

优秀 is the student and the employee of the month; 优美 the scenery and the handwriting. 优点 is the selling point; 优惠 the discount and the coupon. 优先 is the lane and the boarding group; 优良 the fine breed and the fine weather. The character names the top tier and the old player, the grade A, the actor. It still means the abundant and the best, now stamped on a certificate more than a stage.

Why this character belongs on skin

Excellence is not the absence of flaw but the presence of grace. 优 is the excellent, the superior, the easy and elegant — the performer who makes the impossible look like leisure, the best of a thing without strain. The character stands a person beside the idea of abundance and ease, as if to be excellent were simply to be at rest in your own capability. We in the West grind toward perfection and call the exhaustion virtue; but 优 suggests the opposite — that the truly fine move without apparent effort. To wear it is to claim your ease. It is the ink for the one who has stopped performing struggle and simply is, beautifully, enough. Let it mark you as a standard quietly held. You do not need to sweat to be great. You only need to be, in the old word, 优.