Eight eccentrics in Yangzhou

Yangzhou has been famous for its economic prosperity since the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Although it experienced the destruction of soldiers, it was always prosperous again after the war because of its strategic location, convenient transportation, fertile land and abundant products. In the Qing Dynasty, although it was destroyed by the massacre on the 1th, it developed in Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties and became a metropolis in the southeast coast of China and an important trade center in the whole country. Dajia, a wealthy businessman, is surrounded by many places, especially the salt industry, which is rich in the southeast.

economic prosperity also promotes the prosperity of culture and art. Scholars and celebrities from all over the world gather in Yangzhou. At the initiative of local officials, poetry receptions are often held. Poetry creation enjoys a good reputation all over the country. Some salt merchants, who are very rich and arty in themselves, attract more receptions to celebrities from all over the world who come to Yangzhou. Yangzhou has thus attracted many celebrities from all over the country, including many poets, writers and artists. Therefore, Yangzhou at that time was not only the economic center of the southeast, but also the center of culture and art.

In order to meet the needs of his luxurious life, dajia, a wealthy businessman, has a great demand for material and spiritual products, such as exquisite handicrafts, precious pearls and jade, fresh clothes and delicious food, especially in painting and calligraphy. As far as the wind is concerned, the middle-class family and even the slightly rich among the civilians also seek the room where calligraphy and painting hang to show elegance. As the folk proverb goes, "There is no calligraphy and painting at home, it is not an old family". The great demand for calligraphy and painting has attracted and produced a large number of painters. According to the Records of Yangzhou Painting Boats, there are more than a hundred local painters and painters from all over the world who are slightly famous, many of whom are famous at that time, and the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou" is one of them.

The works of Yangzhou School of Painting, represented by "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou", have distinct personalities, both in terms of materials and ideas, and in terms of composition. The formation of this artistic style is closely related to the innovation trend in the painting world at that time and the change of people's aesthetic taste. From the end of Ming Dynasty to the beginning of Qing Dynasty, China's paintings were trapped by conservative thoughts, with copying as the mainstream, and the painting world lacked vitality. This withering wind aroused the dissatisfaction of people of insight and talented painters, and Shi Tao, a great painter who advocated innovation, appeared in Yangzhou Shi Tao put forward the slogans of "pen and ink should keep pace with the times" and "can't get away with it", just like the footsteps in the empty valley, which shook the painting world. Shi Tao's theory and practice "opened a school of Yangzhou", and later, a group of innovative painters such as "Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics" was finally bred.

Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou include eight painters: Zheng Xie, Luo Pin, Huang Shen, Li Fangying, Gao Xiang, Jin Nong, Li Shan and Wang Shishen. It was nearly a hundred years from the rise of Kangxi in the last years to the death of Luo Pin, the youngest painter among the "Eight Eccentrics" in Jiaqing four years. Their paintings are numerous and spread widely, which is immeasurable. According to the existing catalogue of eight eccentrics in Yangzhou compiled by modern people, there are more than 8, paintings collected by more than 2 museums, art galleries and research units at home and abroad. As an outstanding group in the history of Chinese painting, they have become famous in the world. Because the word "eight" can be regarded as an adjective or a divisor.

"Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou" has extensive knowledge and is good at poetry. Most of my life has been bumpy, and I finally embarked on the road of selling paintings for a living. Although they sell paintings, they send their feelings with paintings, and they have higher pursuit in painting and calligraphy art, and they are unwilling to flow into the ranks of ordinary painters. Their knowledge, experience, artistic accomplishment, profound skill and artistic pursuit of innovative ideas are different from those of ordinary painters. They have reached the realm of new ideas, new compositions and new techniques, created a new generation of painting styles and made immortal achievements for the development of China's painting.

China's painting has a long history, in which literati painting flourished from the Tang and Song Dynasties, gradually enriched and developed, forming a complete theoretical system, leaving a large number of works, which is the pride of China's painting. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there have been many schools of painting in various parts of China, each with its own characteristics. The school of Yushan and Loudong, headed by the "Four Kings", has the greatest influence, while in Yangzhou, the painting style of "Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics" headed by Jin Nong and Zheng Xie has been formed. These painters have inherited and carried forward the Chinese painting tradition, but they have different views on inheriting the tradition and creating methods. Yu Shan, Lou Dong and other painting schools emphasize copying and learning from the ancients, take observing the ancient laws as the principle, take strengthening the ancient laws as their own responsibility, and pretend to be "authentic". Their creative method, as the "authentic" painter Wang Hui said, is to "paint with the straight ink of the Yuan people, transport the hills and valleys of the Song people, and polish the charm of the Tang people, which is a great achievement". They followed the ancients and followed suit, and their works were mostly imitations of ancient masters (of course, they were also created in antique), which formed a rigid situation and bound the painter's hands and feet.

The "Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou" also respect tradition, but they are different from the "authentic". They inherited the creative methods of Shi Tao, Xu Wei, Zhu Da, etc., and did not copy the ancient laws. For example, Zheng Banqiao admired Shi Tao, and he learned from Shi Tao. He also "left half, learned half and never learned all". Shi Tao has an important influence on the formation of the artistic style of "Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics". He put forward "learning from nature" and "using my own method", opposed "muddying", asked painters to absorb creative materials in nature, and emphasized that works should have strong personality. He believes that "the ancients could not bear my face; The ancient people's hearts can't enter my stomach and intestines. I spontaneously feel my heart and expose my eyebrows. " Shi Tao's painting thought laid a theoretical foundation for the appearance of "Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou" and applied it in practice. "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou" explored inspiration from nature, searched for themes from life, and wrote their own books, unwilling to be the same as others, which was refreshing at that time. People often regard their rare things as weird, so they feel strange about the works of "Eight Eccentrics" that express their hearts and gallop freely, and call them weird. There are also some painters who are used to tradition. They think that the paintings of "Eight Eccentrics" are beyond the statute, so they belittle the Eight Eccentrics, saying that they are partial teachers and belong to the heresy, saying that they "show novelty and only prevail in thyme". Admirers praised their works for their bold and unrestrained brushwork, which was free from the constraints of the established method and the ancient method, broke the rigid situation at that time, brought new vitality to China's painting, and influenced and nurtured later artists such as Zhao Zhiqian, Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi.

1. Zheng Xie [Zheng Banqiao], the head of the Eight Eccentrics

Zheng Banqiao and his "Bamboo Stone Picture"

Banqiao in the Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, sitting opposite the paper window and bamboo shadow, spread out his pen and ink to draw his favorite bamboo. "Autumn wind passed by the window last night." He saw the breeze passing through the bamboo leaves and the bamboo swaying. Banqiao painted bamboo with the theory of "nothing can be done in the chest". He painted bamboo without a teacher's inheritance, and he got more from the sunlight and moon shadow on the powder wall of the paper window, so he took the natural method directly. In response to Su Dongpo's statement that he has a well-thought-out plan, Banqiao emphasized that he should have a well-thought-out plan. These two theories seem to be contradictory, but the essence is the same, and at the same time, they emphasize the high combination of conception and skilled skills, but the method of Banqiao should be "like thunder and lightning, and the vegetation is angry." Banqiao's "Bamboo Stone Map" shows that bamboo stands tall and straight, rising to the sky one after another. His leaves, each with a different expression, are dark and watery, with a strong shade, which vividly shows the texture of bamboo. In terms of composition, Banqiao handled the positional relationship between bamboo and stone and the words of poems in a very harmonious way. The slender and quiet beauty of bamboo sets off another style of stone. This tufted plant has become an ideal illusion of Banqiao. Banqiao's bamboo, even Jin Nong, the first of the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou", lamented that compared with their paintings, the bamboo he painted was not as elegant as Banqiao's.

2. Gao Qipei

The flower-and-bird sector is created with fingers. Gao Qipei refers to painting a fan, and the shape of two birds is natural and unrestrained, while the poem on the peony flower says, "It is also like rouge painting peony, and the sunrise is three poles when painting. It turns out that flowers are from Fusang country, and people are not allowed to spend the moon to see them. "The poem is quite interesting. Surprisingly, the picture suddenly presents a gorgeous peony, which is extremely beautiful. On the contrary, it has the self-abandonment after its beautiful scenery and the withering atmosphere that it can't bear to see. The peony blooming in the tea garden exudes decadent beauty in the spring breeze. Gao Qipei (1672-1734), whose names were Wei Zhi and Wei San, was also a Taoist priest. Ancestors moved from Shandong to Tieling, Liaoning Province, and the Li-Han army was decorated with yellow flags, and once served as assistant minister of punishments. He was the teacher of Luo Pin, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou. Gao Qipei is good at painting with his fingers, and his "finger painting" has become an important school in painting. In his later years, Gao Qipei's reputation for finger painting spread far and wide in North Korea, but he still painted "A nail is so crippled that it sucks blood, and the candle burns frequently every day". In the eighth year of Yongzheng (A.D. 173), he was asked to paint in Ruyi Hall of Yuanmingyuan for three years, and he created fine silk meticulous paintings such as The Wan Li Map of the Yangtze River. According to Gao Bing's Theory of Finger Painting, Gao Qipei once painted a portrait of Lu Shuntu, the minister of the Ministry of War, and drew a portrait, which was as high as the real person. After the painting was finished, Lu Shun's disciples were overjoyed and said, "What a skill! Into the Tao! "

3. Jin Nong

Jin Nong (1687-1763) was born in Renhe (Hangzhou), Zhejiang Province. His paintings, which absorb the length of Han portraits, are simple and childish, and the pen and ink are extremely similar. It is this clumsy beauty that makes Jin Nong's paintings between similarity and dissimilarity, which makes them unique.

Aoki Masako came to China in the spring of 1922. When visiting the night market in West Lake, the Japanese sinologist found a rubbings of Jin Dongxin's Plum Blossom Map. In Hangzhou, Mr. Dong Xin's hometown, Aoki found a film of Dong Xin's art in a stall. Aoki said that this is the sincerity that can connect the gods. He recorded the scene at that time with the passion of worship ("Jiang Nanchun? ; Bamboo sawdust "). This "Plum Blossom Map" is inscribed with the seven verses that Aoki has been chanting for a long time: "Wild plums are as thin as a shadow, thank you for sharing one. I can't be busy behind closed doors at the moment, so I have to swallow a few flowers and whiskers. " Regarding Jin Dongxin, Wang Zengqi's short story "Jin Dongxin" is very good-looking, because Jin Dongxin's famous poem "The setting sun shines on the peach blossom crossing, and Liu Xufei comes to pieces of red", salt merchant Cheng Xuemen gave a reward of 1,2 yuan. And Jin Dongxin's Plum Blossom Map, which Qi Baishi copied one by one, is very famous. The extension of the Plum Blossom Map purchased by Aoki Hangzhou and the Plum Blossom Map copied by Jin Dongxin by Qi Baishi are now in front of us. This is really the supreme romance in collectors' minds.

4. Li Shan

Li Shan (1686-1762), born in Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, was CheungYueng, whose name was Fu Tang, and whose name was Ao Daoist. Kangxi was promoted in fifty years, and in fifty-three years, painting was called as a sacrifice for the imperial court. Because he didn't want to be bound by the orthodox painting style, he was excluded. In the third year of Qianlong, he was elected as the magistrate of Tengxian County, Shandong Province, and returned to the provincial government. After two different titles and one demotion, he went to Yangzhou to sell paintings for a living. He has the closest relationship with Zheng Xie, so Zheng has the saying that he sells paintings in Yangzhou and is old with Li. In his early years, he learned to paint landscapes from his fellow countryman Wei Lingcang, inherited Huang Gongwang all the way, and studied painting with Jiang Ting when worshiping the imperial court. Later, he sought advice from Gao Qipei, a master of finger painting, and advocated freehand brushwork. In Yangzhou, he was inspired by Shi Tao's brushwork, so he painted with broken pens and splashed ink, and his style changed greatly, forming his own unique style, in which ink and ink blended into a strange interest. He was fond of painting long essays and writing uneven level, which made the picture very rich, and his works had a great influence on flower-and-bird painting in the late Qing Dynasty.

5. Huang Shen

Huang Shen (after 1687-177) was born in Ninghua, Fujian. He is good at freehand brushwork of figures, intercropping flowers and birds, landscapes, and bold colors. There is a collection of poems of Jiaohu Lake. As one of the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou", he is an all-round painter. Huang Shen's freehand brushwork figures create a unique style of putting cursive script into painting. When Huai Su's cursive script arrived in Huang Shen, it became "broken and bald, and the continuous combination of cotton was intermittent", with more bold brushwork and more bold style. With such a wild brushwork, the brushwork is "swift and swift as the wind," and the weather is magnificent, and the stippling is like a wind and leaves. Huang Shen's figure paintings, which mostly take fairy tales, depict historical figures and the lives of ordinary people such as woodcutters, fishermen, vagrants and beggars in real life, bringing a new breath to figure paintings in the Qing Dynasty. Huang Shen's portrait album "The Picture of a Beautiful Woman Appreciating Flowers" depicts a beautiful woman's obsession with flowers. The picture of the crane in the Western Hills is based on Su Shi's "Flying Crane Pavilion". On the right side of the picture, there is a white crane. The old man seems to be looking up at the crane flying in the air, and the boy is holding a flower basket, but he is happy. "I dreamed of Yangzhou Road all my life, and the empty cranes came back" (Huang Shen's "The picture of Lin Bu's training cranes"), Huang Shen lived in Yangzhou twice for 17 years, which became his lifelong attachment.

6. Li Fangying

Li Fangying (1695-1755) was born in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, also known as Qiuchi, Yibaishan, Zhiyuan and Lending Garden. Yongzheng eight years as Shandong country-specific ones (now Linyi) magistrate of a county, arrested and imprisoned for offending the boss, released in the first year of Qianlong, the official reinstated. Later, he was appointed as a magistrate of a county in Anhui Qianshan and Hefei, and was still convicted and dismissed from office for failing to please. When you are an official, you have a benevolent government and people are virtuous. After going to the official, I stayed in Nanjing to borrow the garden and often traveled to Yangzhou to sell paintings. He is good at painting pines, bamboos, orchids, chrysanthemums, plums, miscellaneous flowers and insects and fish, as well as people and landscapes, especially plum. The works are bold and unconstrained, full of ink, coarse and careless, and informal, which is intended to be between ivy, Baiyang and Zhuhan. Plum painting is known for its thinness and hardness, old stem and new branches, and its side is curved. With the method of occasionally printing plum blossoms, the famous inscribed plum poems have sentences that are not frustrating or bizarre. I also like to draw pine and bamboo in the gale. Work book Neng Shi, later generations compiled Poems on Plum Blossom House, with only 26 poems, most of which were scattered in paintings.

7. Wang Shishen

Wang Shishen (1686-1759) was born in Shexian County, Anhui Province, and lived in Yangzhou for a living by selling paintings. Flowers and plants, pen at will, beautiful and colorful. He is especially good at painting plums, and often goes to Meihualing outside Yangzhou to enjoy and write plums. Plum blossoms are known for their dense plums and numerous branches, and they are light in beautiful and elegant, said Jin Nong; The beauty of painting plums is that you get two friends in Guangling, Wang Chaolin paints numerous branches, and Gao Xitang paints sparse branches. (Inscription on Painting Plums) But judging from his works of painting plums, not all of them are numerous branches, but they are often thinned. No matter how simple or complicated, you have time to wrap up the fragrance and enjoy the snow and mountains. At the age of fifty-four, he was blind in his left eye, but he was still able to draw plum blossoms. When he showed his beauty, he engraved: He was born blind in the left eye, but he still kept one eye on plum blossoms. At the age of sixty-seven, he was blind, but he could still write wild grass characters and pay attention to his mind. The so-called blindness is not blind to his heart. Good poetry, author of "Poems of Nest Forest".

8. Luo Pin

Luo Pin (1733-1799) was a famous painter in Qing Dynasty. The word is big, the number is two peaks, and it is also called the clothing cloud, the temple of flowers, the Jinniu Mountain people, the fishing father of Zhou, and the old man of Shilian. His ancestral home was Shexian, Anhui, and later he was from Ganquan, Jiangsu (now Yangzhou). The present state calls itself "Zhu Cao Shi Lin". I'm a disciple of Jin Nong, but I'm not an official, so I'm good at traveling. Painting figures, Buddha statues, landscapes, flowers and fruits, plums, orchids, bamboos, etc., does everything. The style of writing is fantastic, aloof and unique. It is one of the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou". He is also good at drawing funny pictures of ghosts, describing all kinds of ugly ghosts, all of which are extremely wonderful, in order to satirize the ugliness of society at that time. He is also good at engraving, and he is the author of "Biography of Guangyin People". After Jin Nong's death, he collected manuscripts and contributed to engraving, so that Jin Nong's works could be passed down to later generations. His wife, Fang Wanyi, whose name is Bai Lian, is also good at painting Meilan bamboo stones and works in poetry. Zi Yunshao and Yun Yong are both good at painting plums, and they are called "Luo Jiamei School". His representative works include: Weather Signs Outside Objects (Album), Two Peaks Covered with Flowers, Autumn High in Dangui, Sunrise in Shade, Singing in Gu Qing, Painting Bamboo with Sound, etc. He is the author of "Xiang Ye Caotang Collection".

where are the "eight eccentrics in Yangzhou"?

There are different opinions about where the "Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou" is. Some people think they are strange, but in practice, they are not. The Eight Eccentrics themselves have experienced ups and downs. They are full of injustice and infinity.