皴 (cūn): (of skin) to be chapped; to cra…

Meanings

1 (of skin) to be chapped; to crack
2 texturing strokes in Chinese landscape painting

Characters

皴

cūn

chapped; texturing stroke

Examples

她的手因漫长的冬天皴得厉害。

Tā de shǒu yīn màncháng de dōngtiān cūn de lìhai.

Her hands were chapped from the long winter.

经常抹护手霜可以防止皮肤皴裂。

Jīngcháng mǒ hùshǒushuāng kěyǐ fángzhǐ pífū cūnliè.

Apply hand cream often to prevent the skin from cracking.

石涛把披麻皴发挥到了极致。

Shí Tāo bǎ pīmá cūn fāhuī dào le jízhì.

Master Shi Tao perfected the hemp-fibre texturing technique.

Tips

usage

Two living senses. First, on skin: 皴裂 (chapped / cracked) — common in cold-weather skincare ads and pharmacy aisles. Second, in art: a 皴 is a named texturing stroke in landscape painting. Major schools are 披麻皴 (hemp-fibre), 斧劈皴 (axe-cut), 雨点皴 (raindrop) — each rendering different rock textures.

culture

In ink painting 皴法 is the system of broken, dry-brush strokes layered over outline contours to give stone and earth their grain. A connoisseur can date a scroll by which 皴 style its mountains use — the same word that names cracked winter skin names the cracks a painter puts on rock-face.

Components

radical

皮 pí

skin; surface

Right 皮 (skin) is the indexing radical — Kangxi #107. Anchors the meaning in surface / skin: the original sense is cracked human skin, and the painting term extends the same image to the 'skin' of a rock face.

phonetic

夋 qūn

phonetic element

Left 夋 gives the sound — same phonetic in 俊, 峻, 竣, 唆. The reading drifted from qūn to cūn — same series, slightly different palatalization.