# Bamboo and Insects

- By: Wu Bing (Chinese, active 1190–1194)
- Date: late 1100s
- Medium: Album leaf; fan painting, ink on silk
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Image: 24.8 x 26.8 cm (9 3/4 x 10 9/16 in.)
- Culture: China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
- Credit line: Gift of Mrs. A. Dean Perry
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.154)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1964.154/1964.154_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Wu Bing, a native of Piling, gained Empress Li’s favor and served as a painter-in-attendance at the court in Hangzhou during the Shaoxi reign (1190–94). The round fan painting shows a dragonfly hovering over a stalk of bamboo, a bush cricket (luowei) perching on a leaf, and a flying wasp.

Yellow leaf tips suggest the late summer or early autumn season. The chirping of the cricket sounds similar to the sound of a working loom; the insect is therefore also called weaving lady (fangzhi niang). The weaving season starts when the weather is about to turn cold—the cricket symbolizes early autumn.