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

Ouyang Xiu closed his account of the court entertainers with the line, you lao ke yi xing guo, yi yu ke yi wang shen, that care builds a realm and ease undoes it, naming the hao who lose themselves in comfort. The character hao is the grand and willful, the hao jie who seizes the age. From the histories it passed to the hao hua feast and the tu hao with more gold than taste.

Common words & phrases

• 自豪 proud · pride
• 豪迈 heroic · bold · grand
• 豪华 luxurious · lavish · grand
• 豪杰 hero · heroic person
• 豪爽 forthright · generous · bold
• 土豪 local tyrant · rich (new money)

Read the story behind the character

A wedding books a hao hua hotel and the host feels hao shuang with the bill, while a self-made tu hao posts the new car online. The team captain plays hao jie on the field, and the fan is zi hao of the city. The character hao still swings between the heroic and the merely rich, the grand stroke that buys or earns.

Why this character belongs on skin

A boar beneath a roof—wild power brought under the beam of a house—and from that old picture, 豪 grew to mean the grand, the heroic, the man of unembarrassed magnitude. 自豪 is pride; 豪情 is the flood-tide of feeling that takes a warrior over the wall. Think of the wine poems of Li Bai, who called himself a doomed immortal and drank like one: 豪放, unrestrained, is an entire school of Song lyric—verse that refuses to whisper. This is not arrogance, which is fear wearing jewels. It is magnitude of spirit, the confidence to occupy a full life without apology. The Romans had their virtus; the Greeks their megalopsychia, greatness of soul. Every language knows the type. Somewhere in you there is a version of yourself that takes up the whole room, loves at full volume, spends courage like inherited money. This character is a permission slip for that person. Wear it low, near the pulse, where the grand in you can feel it.