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Bada Shanren - Chinese Art Web |
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 Bada Shanren (literally "Mountain Man of the Eight Greats", ca. 1626—1705) , born as Zhu Da, was a Chinese painter of shuimohua and a calligrapher. He was of noble lineage, being a descendant of the Ming dynasty prince Zhu Quan.
A child prodigy, he began painting and writing poetry in his early childhood. About the year 1658, when the Ming emperor committed suicide and a rebel army attacked Beijing, the young man sought refuge in a Buddhist temple and became a monk. As a loyal subject of the Ming, he was heart broken and refused to speak to anyone: he only laughs and cries (as inscriptions in his paintings show). He was a leading painter of the Qing period.
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, Wang Fangyu, was a major collector of Bada Shanren paintings from the 1960s until his death in 1997.
Forgeries
According to an article by Lorraine Adams published in Smithsonian magazine in 2003, Zhu Da is one of the most forged artists of the 17th Century.
Zhu Quan, Prince of Ning
Zhu Quan, The Prince of Ning, (1378 – 1448) was the 17th son of Ming Emperor Hongwu Zhu Yuanzhang; a military commander, historian and playwright, great tea connoisseur and a qin player.
Pseudonym: Mr. Dan Qiu, Da Ming Qi Shi, The Odd Scholar of Great Ming, the Emmanciated Immortal.
Zhu Quan was a military commander, famous for his masterly art of war. In his late years, he retired completely from politics. A great lover of books, he funded the publishing of many rare books. Prince Ning himself wrote many books on history and drama, including The Secret History of Han and Tang Dynasty and Eloping Xianru. His most famous book was Cha Pu, Tea manual of 1440. He is also the ancestor of famous Chinese painter Zhu Da.
Zhu Quan is an important person in the guqin world, for compling the important Shenqi Mipu (Mysterious and Marvellous Tablatures) of 1425, the earliest discovered collection of qin scores found.
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