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

Confucius praised Yan Hui for '克己复礼' — mastering the self to restore the rites. The character once showed a man kneeling under a roof, subdued. In the Zuozhuan, generals 攻克 walled towns; later the word meant solving a hard problem. A kitchen scale in old texts weighed in 克, a unit borrowed from the West only in the last century.

Common words & phrases

• 克服 overcome · conquer · surmount
• 克制 restrain · control · repress
• 攻克 capture · solve · take by storm
• 千克 kilogram · kilo
• 坦克 tank · armored vehicle
• 巧克力 chocolate · cocoa

Read the story behind the character

A runner 克服 a pulled muscle to finish the race. The cook 克制 the urge to oversalt. Chemists 攻克 a stubborn compound; shoppers buy 巧克力 by the bar and read 千克 on the label. A child's toy 坦克 sits on the shelf, its treads painted green, far from any real battlefield.