This term comes from the traditional Chinese theory of literary creation. It first appeared in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons by Liu Xie (465?-520? or 532?) of the Southern Dynasties. Rebutting the way some men of letters had since Wei and Jin times taken to faking emotions or arguments just for the sake of writing, and relying on all kinds of flowery language to disguise the emptiness of content, Liu discussed in brief the relation between form and content. Assuming the idea of mingling graceful wording with substance propounded in The Analects, he advocated giving equal value to content and form. His belief was that a balance should be struck between these two, and meaning should not be sacrificed in the pursuit of beauty in form. This concept had great impact on the literary creation theory of the Tang and Song dynasties.

Confucius said, “When one’s inner disposition is in excess of his outward grace, he will look uncultured; when one’s outward grace is in excess of his inner disposition he will seem to be superficial. Only when his inner disposition and outward grace are in balance can he be a man of virtue.” The Analects

When writing an article, design a structure for discussing your intended content, and set a keynote for expressing your feelings and thoughts. Then support such feelings and thoughts with a metrical pattern and adorn such content with formal beauty, making sure that wording does not conceal content and intricate rhetoric does not drown out the author’s feelings and thoughts. Make perfectly regular colors such as vermilion and blueness shine. Do not use in-between colors such as orange and purple. This, I insist, is what a proper man should do – adorning his writing by making it both beautiful in style and rich in content. Liu Xie: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons