This painting, featuring a pair of magpies and a pair of shrikes, is a work by Jo Sok, who is renowned for his ink paintings of birds and flowers. The magpie, a familiar bird in Korea, symbolizes the delivery of joy. The artist’s keen observation is evident in the magpie’s action of preening its feathers with its beak. The numerous triangular leaves, painted with a flattened brush, add vibrancy to the composition. Jo Sok absorbed the style of the Chinese Ming artist Lin Liang (1424–after 1500), often using swift brushstrokes. Jo Sok’s well-organized composition and lyrical atmosphere became a model for seventeenth-century Joseon bird-and-flower paintings, influencing later generations.