The Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou is the general name of a group of painters and calligraphers with similar styles who lived in Yangzhou in the middle of Qing Dynasty in China. They are also called Yangzhou School of Painting. There are eight "Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics". They are Luo Pin, Li Fangying, Li (with a single fish), Jin Nong, Huang Shen, Zheng Xie, Gao Xiang and Wang Shishen. Most of the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou are from the lower and middle intellectual classes. Some of them are state and county officials who have been dismissed from their posts, some are scribes who have not obtained fame, and some are painters who are poor and make a living by painting. They either grew up in Yangzhou or came to live here for other provinces, and each had a bumpy experience. They gathered in Yangzhou one after another and sold their paintings and calligraphy works in Yangzhou's prosperous painting and calligraphy market.

The Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou are a group of intellectuals with a sense of justice. They all know about the corruption of officialdom and the extortion of wealthy businessmen. Faced with the difference between the rich and the poor in real life and combined with their own experiences, they have a strong dissatisfaction with society. They often place deep sympathy on the people who suffer and send out angry voices on their behalf. However, because they were educated in feudal culture, and the Qing Dynasty was in its heyday at that time, their feelings and dissatisfaction could not break through the barriers of feudal thought. Among them, officials strive to build a number, so that the people can live and work in peace and contentment, in order to maintain feudal order. If you have no intention of officialdom, you will lead an honest and clean life, disagree with the customs, and flaunt yourself with lofty ideals. However, it is impossible for them to get rid of their economic dependence on landlords, officials and businessmen, so they are often in extreme pain of ideological contradictions, and they have to compromise to survive outside of cynicism. Zheng Xie, the representative of the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou, left a lot of comments, which can be described as a thinker among the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou. Li (Jia Dan beside the fish) expressed the most painful and intense contradiction in his works, and became the main target of attack.

The most prominent thing about the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou is their emphasis on individual expression. They advocate original style and "independence". They openly declare that their works are for selling money to make a living, tearing the veil that literati painters used to regard painting creation as "elegant things". On the subject matter of their works, on the one hand, they inherited the tradition of literati painting, and took plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, pine and stone as the main description objects, so as to show the lofty, aloof and vulgar painters. On the other hand, they also used symbols, comparisons and metaphors to write poems and poems, giving their works profound social content and unique ideological expression forms. For example, Li Fangying's "Wind Bamboo Map" symbolizes stubborn and unyielding character with strong bamboo that is not afraid of strong winds; Huang Shen's "Begging for a Map" and Luo Pin's "Selling Cattle Songs" show their careful observation of the real society, directly or indirectly showing social injustice. In terms of painting style, the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou mainly inherited the techniques of freehand brushwork in ink painting in previous paintings, and further developed their expertise in ink painting, shaping objects in a highly concise way, not sticking to the shape of branches and leaves. In pen and ink, they are unconstrained, galloping freely and expressing their feelings directly. Because their works were contrary to the subtle and elegant flower-and-bird painting style popular at that time, they were often severely criticized by critics and called "strange".

Although the art of the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou was only popular in Yangzhou and its neighboring areas at that time, it had a far-reaching influence on inheriting and developing the traditional ink and wash freehand brushwork in China.