The Calligrapher — Zhào Mèngfǔ 赵孟頫

Yuan master whose elegant regular and running script revived classical tradition.

Yuan calligrapher (1254–1322), master of regular script/running script/cursive script — Yuan reviver of classical elegance who could write any script beautifully and did. Yuan dynasty

Cultural Story

倚 is to rest against. The 楚辞 speaks of 倚窗 at night, watching the river; a lord would 倚仗 a favorite and lose the state. To 倚重 a man was to trust him with the war. The 倚老卖老 elder trades on his years. The character is the body or the power leaned upon.

Common words & phrases

• 倚靠 lean on · rely on · depend · rest against
• 倚仗 rely on · depend on · count on · lean
• 倚重 rely heavily · value · depend · trust
• 倚窗 lean by window · by window · rest at · near
• 倚老卖老 bully by age · flaunt seniority · presume · boss
• 凭倚 lean on · rely · support · rest

Read the story behind the character

A reader 倚窗 with the phone at night; the firm 倚仗 the old client for its income. A manager 倚重 the new coder, and the 倚老卖老 boss lectures the room on habit. Leaning, relying, presuming — this word runs the windowsill, the contract, and the meeting where seniority is worn like a badge.

Why this character belongs on skin

A plum tree against a wall bears fruit it could not bear alone, and a tired traveler with his back to the warm stone remembers what it is to stop. The character is a person resting against another, the lean that is neither collapse nor distance — the admission that to stand always alone is its own kind of failure. Confucius taught that we are shaped by whom we lean toward, that the friend is the wall that lets us grow upright. There is love in the lean, the unspoken 'I am here, you may rest,' and there is strength in being the thing leaned on. To wear this is to confess you are not a fortress, and to offer yourself as someone else's wall. Let it rest where an arm might fall across it — a vow that you will be the steady surface in another's weary evening, and that you have, at last, found the few people worth leaning your whole tired weight against.