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

When the First Emperor unified the realm in 221 BCE, he she jun xian, established commanderies and counties, replacing the old feudal lords with appointed officials, a single administrative stroke that shaped China for two millennia. The character she joins words to a gesture of placing; to she was to found, to array, to lay a thing down where it would stand. From the prefecture to the altar, she is the act of making an institution occupy ground.

Common words & phrases

• 设计 design · plan
• 设立 establish · set up · found
• 设备 equipment · facilities · device
• 建设 build · construct · construction
• 假设 hypothesis · suppose · assumption

Read the story behind the character

A studio she ji, designs, a phone; a firm she li, establishes, a branch; a lab buys she bei, equipment; a city jian she, builds, a subway; a scientist proposes a jia she, a hypothesis. The character runs from the emperor's map to the architect's screen, every place a plan is given a body. It names the moment intention becomes arrangement, the quiet decision that something not yet real should now have a place to stand.