Buy an 入木三分 calligraphy wall scroll here!
入木三分 is a four-character Chinese proverb that translates in English to a strong form of “profound” or “written with a forceful hand.”
But there is much more to the story...
The deep meaning behind this proverb comes from a man named Wan Xizhi, who lived in the third century.
He was a great writer and calligrapher whose writing style influenced generations of other writers and calligraphers.
He once wrote words on a piece of wood to be taken to an engraver.
When the engraver began to carve the characters into the wood, he found that Wang Xizhi's writing had penetrated the wood about 3/8 of an inch.
Thus people believed that his words were so powerful and profound that they caused the ink from his brush to penetrate the wood deeply.
The proverb literally means “penetrated wood three fen” (A fen is an ancient Chinese measurement of a little over 1/8 of an inch or almost 4mm).
Below are some entries from our dictionary that may match your 入木三分 search...
Characters If shown, 2nd row is Simp. Chinese |
Pronunciation Romanization |
Simple Dictionary Definition |
入木三分 see styles |
rù mù sān fēn ru4 mu4 san1 fen1 ju mu san fen |
More info & calligraphy: Profound / Powerful Words |
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
Profound Powerful Words | 入木三分 | rù mù sān fēn ru4 mu4 san1 fen1 ru mu san fen rumusanfen | ju mu san fen jumusanfen |
Successful Chinese Character and Japanese Kanji calligraphy searches within the last few hours...
All of our calligraphy wall scrolls are handmade.
When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"
single-character wall scroll.
We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.
Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.
Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.
There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.
Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.
The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over 6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt such a feat.
Check out my lists of Japanese Kanji Calligraphy Wall Scrolls and Old Korean Hanja Calligraphy Wall Scrolls.