📖 Meaning
Literally, a painting just one foot across depicts scenery spanning a thousand miles. As a metaphor, it describes a work that is small in size yet remarkably rich in content, conveying vast depth within a compact form.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the 'Nan Shi' (History of the Southern Dynasties), specifically the biography of Xiao Zhaoqu of the Southern Qi dynasty. From a young age, Zhaoqu was fond of learning and possessed literary talent, skilled in both calligraphy and painting. He would paint landscapes on fans, and viewers felt that within a mere hand-span, the distance of ten thousand miles seemed to stretch out before them. The phrase thus came to represent the ability to convey immense scope within a small space.
💡 Example Usage
这幅山水画虽只有盈尺，却有尺幅千里之势。
Though this landscape painting is barely a foot across, it conveys the sweeping grandeur of a thousand miles.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 尺幅千里
- Pinyin: chǐ fú qiān lǐ
- Literal Translation: a foot of canvas, a thousand miles
- Category: Quality
- Characters: 4