Bada Shanren

Bada Shanren (; 1626 – 1705), born Zhu Da (), was a Chinese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and painter of the ink wash painting style. He was of royal descent, being a direct offspring of the Ming dynasty prince Zhu Quan who had a feudal establishment in Nanchang (present-day Jiangxi province). His master lineage's accession was revoked following the last Ning Lineage King Zhu Chenhao's rebellion in 1521, but the rest of the lineage was allowed to retain their status in Jiangxi. Art historians have named him as a brilliant painter of the period.

Life and work

Bada Shanren, a purported child prodigy born to a disabled father, began painting and writing poetry in his early childhood. About the year 1644, when the Ming emperor committed suicide and the Manchu army from the north attacked Beijing, the young Han Chinese man sought refuge in a vihara. Because he was a Ming prince, the dynastic upheaval created a great amount of uncertainty for his position in society. As years passed and the Manchurian court became more firmly established, there was less and less insecurity among the Qing regime about remaining Ming loyalties and possible future rebellions. Due to these more stable circumstances, after 40 years, Bada Shanren deemed it acceptable to leave the monastery and to re-enter day-to-day life among society.
In the aftermath of a nervous breakdown that could have been staged to avoid retribution for his family background, Zhu Da abandoned his monastic life and developed a career as a professional painter, adopting a series of descriptive pseudonyms, most notably Bada Shanren by which he is most often known today. He is said to have screamed and made weird sounds while painting. The stylized vertical writing of his pseudonym Bada Shanren () looks like the characters for ''laugh'' () and ''cry'' (), thus by signing his paintings he implied his confusion and feelings of grief for the fate of his country and home.

His paintings feature sharp brush strokes which are attributed to the sideways manner by which he held his brush. In the 1930s, Chinese painter Zhang Daqian produced several forgeries of Bada Shanren's works but they are easily spotted by the trained eye, because the modern copies were softer and rounder.

Yale University scholar Fred Fangyu Wang (1913–1997) and his wife Sum Wai () were major collectors of Bada Shanren paintings from the 1960s onwards up to 1997 when Fang died. They had amassed the largest private collection of Bada Sharen's works, including paintings and calligraphies. during their lifetimes. The Freer Gallery of Art later bought the collection from their estate. Freer is currently the holder of the largest collection of Bada Shanren's art in the United States.

Gallery

Image:Chu Ta 003.jpg, ''Two Birds'', Sen-oku Hakuko Kan, Kyoto, Japan
Image:Fish and Rocks. Zhu Da. MET DP123757.jpg, Metropolitan Museum, New York
Image:White Plum Blossoms.jpg, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Image:Bada Shanren NelsonAtkins.jpg, Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas city, USA

References

Sources

* Stokstad, Marilyn; ''Art History'', 2011, 4th ed.,

External links

Zhu Da and his Painting Gallery
at China Online Museum

Could Bada Shanren be the first caricaturist in China?

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bada Shanren
1626 births
1705 deaths
17th-century Chinese calligraphers
17th-century Chinese painters
18th-century Chinese calligraphers
Buddhist artists
Ming dynasty calligraphers
Ming dynasty painters
Qing dynasty Buddhist monks
Qing dynasty calligraphers
Qing dynasty painters
Painters from Jiangxi
People from Nanchang