Mi Fu (1051-1107), born in Taiyuan in North China's Shanxi province, is a famous calligrapher, ink painter, calligraphy and painting theorist and scholar from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

Together with Cai Xiang, Su Shi and Huang Tingjian, Mi is considered one of the "four great calligraphers of the Song Dynasty (960-1279)".

Mi's landscape paintings have a unique style, giving him the title of "father of Chinese impressionism". 

Mi once worked as a military senior official in Guilin, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in his twenties, which had a significant influence on his artistic evolution. He used different ink shades and large dots applied with a flat brush to render slowly flowing landscapes of rivers and clouds, pioneering an abstract style.

He was also quite accomplished in calligraphy and was capable of various calligraphic styles. He was also adept at copying ancient calligraphy artworks that could pass as the real ones.