Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Cai Xiang
Northern Song official and calligrapher, counted among the Four Song Masters, who built the Wan'an (Luoyang) Bridge at Quanzhou and wrote the Record of Tea
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Junmo · Hao Pu Yang Ju Shi · Shi Zhonghui
Cai Xiang, courtesy name Junmo, came from Xianyou in Xinghua and passed the jinshi examination in 1030. When Fan Zhongyan, Yu Jing and others were banished for outspokenness in 1036, his poem on four worthies and one unworthy was copied all over the capital. He served as a remonstrance official in the Qingli years and twice governed Fuzhou and Quanzhou; at Quanzhou he built the Wan'an Bridge across the Luoyang River, finished in 1059, and carved his own account of it in stone. As fiscal commissioner of Fujian he oversaw the pressed 'small dragon' tea cakes and presented his *Record of Tea* (*Chalu*) to Emperor Renzong. He died in 1067 at fifty-six after a term in Hangzhou and was named Zhonghui in the Southern Song. Ouyang Xiu judged his calligraphy unrivalled in its day, and he is counted with Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and Mi Fu as one of the Four Song Masters.
Life and times
Dates 1012 CE–1067 CE