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Luo Ping (1733-1799), known as the youngest of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou and a follower of Jin Nong (1687-1763), was one of the most versatile and compelling artists of his time. While his work covers all major painting subjects and exhibits great stylistic and conceptual variety, his personality appears equally multifaceted. Contemporaries and later critics characterized him variously as a cultural arriviste, a Confucian scholar of great moral dignity, a Buddhist monk, a loving and devout husband, an «eccentric» with strong leanings toward the supernatural, and even an anti-Manchu dissident.
Structured as a comprehensive and largely chronological account of the artist's life and his interactions with patrons of different geo-cultural environs, namely Yangzhou and Beijing, this study attempts to identify the factors that contributed to the unfolding of the master's artistic voice. It includes an extensive examination of Luo's personal, literary, and artistic engagement with Buddhism, which constituted a significant but hitherto obscure facet of his life and work.
List of contents
Contents: The genesis of an artist - Follower of Jin Nong - The Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou - Luo Ping's workshop practice - Buddhist painting and depictions of ghosts - The itinerant artist: In search of patronage, development, and recognition - Interaction between art and social life: Painting in Beijing.
About the author
The Author: Kim Karlsson (born in 1962 in Göteborg, Sweden) studied East Asian Art History, Sinology, and European Art History at the University of Zurich and at Nanjing University, PR China. She is a lecturer at the University of Zurich and academic assistant at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich.
