Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Hong Ren
Huizhou painter-monk who took the tonsure after the fall of the Ming, painted the peaks of Huangshan in the spare manner of Ni Zan and is counted among the Four Monks
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Jiang Tao · Hao Jianjiang · Hao Meihua Guna
Hongren, born Jiang Tao, came from Shexian in Huizhou. After the Qing armies came south he went to Fujian, and around 1647 he became a monk under the Chan master Guhang Daozhou in the Wuyi Mountains, taking the name Hongren and the sobriquet Jianjiang. A few years later he returned to Huizhou, living mostly at the Wuming monastery in Shexian and making repeated trips to Huangshan. His landscapes took the Yuan painter Ni Zan as their model but drew on the cliffs and ravines of Huangshan, and Huizhou painters such as Zha Shibiao and Sun Yi followed his lead in what came to be called the Xin'an school. He died in January 1664, and friends planted several hundred plum trees around his grave, so that he became known as the Old Monk of the Plum Blossoms. The Draft History of Qing (Qingshi gao) lists him with Daoji, Kuncan and Zhu Da among the Ming loyalists who hid in the monkhood and became known for painting.
Life and times
Dates 1610 CE–1664 CE