Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Yan Hui
Painter of Daoist and Buddhist figures and ghosts active around 1300, known for Liu Haichan and Li Tieguai and for Hanshan and Shide
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 Qiuyue
Yan Hui, courtesy name Qiuyue, came from Jiangshan in Zhejiang (some say Luling) and worked around the end of the Song and the start of the Yuan. He painted Daoist and Buddhist figures, demons and gibbons with a bold brush and dense ink, and was known in the Yuan for religious figures. The Chion-ji in Kyoto holds his pair of scrolls of Liu Haichan and Li Tieguai, the Tokyo National Museum his Hanshan and Shide, and the Palace Museum a hanging scroll of Li the Immortal, the iron-crutch Li of the Eight Immortals, credited to him.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active c. late 13th to early 14th century