Mi Fu
Mi Fu (Chinese: 米芾 or 米黻; pinyin: Mǐ Fú, also given as Mi Fei, 1051–1107 CE) was a Chinese painter, poet and calligrapher who was born in Taiyuan during the Song dynasty. He became known for his style of painting misty landscapes. This style would be deemed the "Mi Fu" style and involved the use of large wet dots of ink applied with a flat brush. His poetry was influenced by Li Bai and his calligraphy by Wang Xizhi.
| Mi Fu | |||||||||||||||||
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Mi Fu as depicted in a 1107 CE painting by Chao Buzhi | |||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 米芾 or 米黻 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Hangul | 미불 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Hiragana | べいふつ | ||||||||||||||||
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Mi Fu is regarded as one of the four greatest calligraphers of the Song dynasty, alongside Su Shi, Hung Tingjian and Cai Xian. His style is derived from calligraphers in earlier dynasties, although he developed unique traits of his own.
As a personality, Mi Fu was noted as an eccentric; including a mania of cleanliness. At times, he was deemed "Madman Mi" due to his obsession with collecting stones. He was also known to be a heavy drinker. His son, Mi Youren, also became a well known painter following in his father's artistic style.