Cui Bai (, also known as Cui Bo, style name Zixi () (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1050–1080)Barnhart: Page 372. was a prominent

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

of the

Northern Song Dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

(960–1279). A native of

Anhui Province Anhui is an inland province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiangxi to the south, Hub ...

,Ci Hai: Page 792. Cui was best known for paintings of animals and plants. At some point during his life, he traveled to the capital of

Kaifeng Kaifeng ( zh, s=开封, p=Kāifēng) is a prefecture-level city in east-Zhongyuan, central Henan province, China. It is one of the Historical capitals of China, Eight Ancient Capitals of China, having been the capital eight times in history, and ...

to seek employment as a court artist, and was accepted by

Emperor Shenzong of Song Emperor Shenzong of Song (25 May 1048 – 1 April 1085), personal name Zhao Xu, was the sixth emperor of the Song dynasty of China. His original personal name was Zhao Zhongzhen but he changed it to "Zhao Xu" after he acceded to the throne. He ...

, who admired his works. He became a renowned artist of Shenzong's court, but gained an awkward reputation for his often eccentric behavior. Cui Bai is today known for two paintings depicting magpies and sparrows respectively. ''Magpies and Hare'', also known as "Double Happiness", because "two magpies" in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

is pronounced the same as "two happinesses", is held in the

National Palace Museum The National Palace Museum, also known as Taipei Palace Museum, is a national museum headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Founded in Beijing in 1925, the museum was re-established in Shilin District, Shilin, Taipei, in 1965, later expanded with a S ...

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

. The painting would have been meant as a gift to someone to congratulate them in some way, most likely for a wedding. ''Wintery Sparrow'', a large handscroll, is kept in the

Palace Museum The Palace Museum (), also known as the Beijing Palace Museum, is a large national museum complex housed in the Forbidden City at the core of Beijing, China. With , the museum inherited the imperial royal palaces from the Ming and Qing dynast ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

Notes

References

*Barnhart, R. M. et al. (1997). Three thousand years of Chinese painting. New Haven, Yale University Press. *Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (). Ci hai (). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (), 1979.

Notes

References

See also