Most well-known Painter in China: Lishan
By admin on 2014-12-26

Li Shan (李鳝): style name Fu tang (复堂); native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province. He passed the court-administered civil service examination in the fiftieth year of emperor Kangxi’s reign. His official appointments include a stint as court painter and as county chief executive. Unaccustomed to bureaucratic rigidity, he later resigned from public service to become a professional painter in Yangzhou. One of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, he advocated a free spirit inpoetry, painting and calligraphy. He was a master at controlling the use of dark, white and gray and point, line and surface. He emphasizes the big picture and slows flaws in details. Thus the calligraphy used in the verse inscription in this painting leaves much to be desired but its densely spaced lines are necessary for pictorial balance. The blockish brushwork used to model the lotus leaf at left is incongruous with the arched brushstrokes employed in the rest of the painting; but the light gray defining the line between the leaf and the flower is indispensable for balance. In some sense the artist is not so much drawing a lotus in the wind as weaving together a mental picture with dark, white, gray and points, lines and surfaces.