Zheng Sixiao

• Born: 1241
• Died: 1318
• Chinese/Japanese: 鄭思肖 (Zhèng Sīxiào / Tei Shishou)

Zheng Sixiao was a painter of the late Southern Song and Yuan Dynasties, famous for his paintings of uprooted orchids. It has been suggested that the uprooted orchids, along with the poetic inscriptions Zheng placed on these paintings, are a subtle political message, alluding to the uprooting of cultivated, civilized Chinese culture in the wake of China being taken over by barbarians (Mongols). One particularly famous and oft-cited example of these orchid paintings is held at the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art.

References

• Michael Sullivan, The Three Perfections: Chinese Painting, Poetry, and Calligraphy, George Braziller (1999), 30-31.