Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Jin Nong
Hangzhou scholar and calligrapher who never held office, wrote a blunt-brushed script later called lacquer writing and took up painting only at fifty
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 Shoumen · Hao Dongxin
Jin Nong, courtesy name Shoumen and known as Dongxin, came from Renhe near Hangzhou and never held office; a lover of antiquity, he collected a thousand rubbings of ancient inscriptions. Recommended for the special examination of 1736, he was not chosen, and after years of travel he settled in Yangzhou, living by his calligraphy and painting. He reworked Han clerical script and the style of two Three Kingdoms steles from the state of Wu, cutting down his brush to write large characters in what later came to be called lacquer script. He began to paint only at fifty, first bamboo and then plum blossoms, horses and Buddhist figures, inventing a new sobriquet for each and shaping flowers and trees as he pleased. Aloof by temperament and spare in his verse, he had no son, and his pupil Luo Pin gathered his writings after he died in Yangzhou in 1763. He is counted among the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou.
Life and times
Dates 1687 CE–1763 CE