Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Cao Zhibai
Wealthy Yuan collector and landscape painter from Songjiang who hosted scholars at his garden and painted in the manner of Li Cheng and Guo Xi
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 Youxuan · Zi Zhensu · Hao Yunxi
Cao Zhibai, courtesy names Youxuan and Zhensu, styled Yunxi and known as Master Zhensu, came from Huating, modern Songjiang in Shanghai. A wealthy man with a large library, he laid out a garden with ponds at his home and exchanged poems with Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan and other scholars, spending most of his life without office. His landscapes follow Li Cheng and Guo Xi, with clear, moist ink and open compositions, often of wintry trees and snow. Snow-Covered Peaks, a hanging scroll in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is his best-known work, and Twin Pines also survives. He died in 1355 at eighty-three (eighty-four by Chinese reckoning).
Life and times
Dates 1272 CE–1355 CE