Sunday, September 9, 2018

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (39) Vast sky allow birds to fly freely - 天高任鸟飞

"The sky is high to let birds to fly freely" - 天高任鸟飞 is a famous Chinese proverb, which means that the world is big to allow people who have ambitious to make dream come true.

Let's see the characters involved in the proverb.


Sky - small seal script




in which 


means Big - a person opens his arms and legs. On the Big's top, add a line, meaning bigger or higher than Big which is Sky.

High - Shell bone script


which is an ancient city gate tower, the highest building in that time. 

Allow - small seal script
the left part is Human or People, the right part is Tool, which means that a skillful craftsman who can make impossible to possible.

Bird - big seal script

which is just an image of bird.

Fly - modified shell bone script (I discussed in Post 1).

So here we go for the art work: 

The sky is very high to allow birds to fly freely 



I modified "High" a little bit. 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (80) Thinking Elephant - 想象

There were elephants living in Yellow River region about millions years ago. The weather changed, the forest disappeared, and elephants vani...