Tie Guai Li, an Eight Immortals man, has a gourd in his hand. There are many ways to write Chinese characters, and writing to the limit is cursive. The words on it are rough, but they are not the most difficult to identify. You can basically learn about patterns by observing them. The first four words are "inside the gourd", which is no different from modern writing and easy to identify. The word "Tian" is a bit difficult to recognize. This is how the word "heaven" in cursive script is written, and "heaven and earth" can be written in one stroke. As for the last word, anyone who knows a little about calligraphy knows it is "old". The two words on the seal are "Mei Gong", which should be the calligrapher who wrote "Heaven and Earth are old in a gourd", perhaps Chen Jiru. Chen Jiru,No. Mei Gong, was a famous painter and calligrapher in the late Ming Dynasty, as famous as Dong Qichang.
Why do you say "old"? The meaning of Chinese characters is very rich. If someone says "this old thing" in life, it is obviously derogatory; The word "old" is sometimes a compliment, such as sophistication, maturity and sophistication. "Heaven and earth are always in the gourd" is this kind of philosophy. We often say, "I don't know what medicine is sold in the gourd." Gourd has many meanings in China culture, one of which is to save the world by hanging a pot, which represents medical ethics.
In the Han Dynasty, there was a man named Fei Changfang. When he was treating people, he hung a gourd there. People knew the doctor was coming when they saw the gourd, so "What medicine is sold in the gourd" came from here.
The homonym of "Hulu" is "Fulu", which is a very important indicator of life in feudal society. Gourd also means many children. In the hard living environment of feudal society, having more children means more work, so people pray for more children and more happiness. The phrase "Heaven and Earth are old within a gourd" contains a lot of contents, which is the ability of China literati.