Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wang Shishen
Anhui-born Yangzhou painter of plum blossoms, a tea lover and seal carver who went on painting after losing the sight of one eye and then both
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 Zi Jinren · Hao Chaolin
Wang Shishen, courtesy name Jinren and known as Chaolin, came from Huizhou in Anhui and spent most of his life in Yangzhou, living modestly by selling his paintings. He painted flowers, above all plum blossoms, in pale and open ink, wrote clerical script, carved seals and wrote poetry. So devoted to tea that friends called him the Tea Immortal, he wrote many poems about it. In middle age he lost the sight of his left eye and carved a seal saying he still had one eye left to look at plum blossoms; in old age he went completely blind but could still write wild cursive by feel. He died in 1759. He is counted among the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, and his poems survive as the Chaolin ji.
Life and times
Dates 1686 CE–1759 CE