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

At the battle of Julu the armies met near 钜鹿, and Xiang Yu's crushing of the Qin there in 207 BCE opened the road to the empire, the 钜 of the name meaning a greatness pressed into a place. The 钜款 of later ledgers kept that sense of a sum too large to ignore. From that battlefield the character carried the weight of the outsized and the momentous.

Common words & phrases

• 钜款 huge sum of money
• 钜鹿 Julu (place name)

Read the story behind the character

A bank approves a 钜款 loan for the new plant, and a map tags 钜鹿 as the county where the old battle turned. The character now rides a balance sheet and a road sign. The greatness once pressed into a battlefield name has become the size of a transaction and the mark of a town, the outsized carried from a general's victory into a financier's figure.