Bada Shanren (; 1626 – 1705), born Zhu Da (), was a Chinese painter, calligrapher, and poet.
He was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi, in 1626. Zhu was mentally ill and displayed erratic behavior. He was a Ming empire prince. Fearing that he would also be purged and executed, he fled to a Buddhist temple and learned the teachings of Zen Buddhism, becoming a monk for 30 years.
He spent most of his early to mid-life in the Buddhist monkhood, returning to Nanchang when he was about fifty years old.Wang and Barnhart, 14, 50. He embarked on an artistic career soon after reentering secular life in 1680, producing works that featured his calligraphy, painting, and poetry.Wang and Barnhart, 50. Most of the time, he painted simple subjects like flowers, plants, and animals and kept most of the given space empty. Toward the end of his life, he started painting more landscapes.Wang and Barnhart, 70.
Some of his artwork were metaphors on the fall of the Ming dynasty and its failure after being destroyed by the Qing. His poems often included obscure references.
Background Bada Shanren lived during an end of the Ming dynasty and execution of the House of Zhu. In the early 1600s, around the time Bada was born, the Ming empire was disintegrating from factional conflict and rebellion.Tynon, “Painting and Politics,” 101. Facing a rebellion led by Li Zicheng in 1644, the last Ming emperor committed suicide.
The Qing also defeated Ming loyalists, known as yimin. Zhu Youlang, the Prince of Gui, was crowned the Yongli emperor of the shortlived Southern Ming dynasty in 1647, centered around Yunnan with Kunming as its capital. In 1662, the Qing dynasty and Wu Sangui executed Zhu by strangling. Wu took control over Yunnan and established the short-lived Zhou dynasty. In 1673, Wu led the Revolt of the Three Feudatories against the new Qing government, but failed. The Qing successfully suppressed the rebellion in 1681.
Biography
Early life and family A descendant of a Ming imperial prince, Bada was born into a family of accomplished scholars and artists.Mina Kim, “Lotus and Birds in the Cincinnati Art Museum: Philosophical Syncretism in the Transitional Work of Bada Shanren” (The Ohio State University, 2012), 6. His grandfather Zhu Duozheng was a poet, painter, calligrapher, and seal-carver, and his father was most likely Zhu Moujin, a painter and calligrapher mute since birth.Wang and Barnhart, Master of the Lotus Garden, 6, 13. Bada grew up under such artistic influences, studying poetry, calligraphy, and painting through his family's works.Wang and Barnhart, 23. Bada also received a classical education and passed the first-level test of the civil service examinations in the early 1640s.Kim, “Lotus and Birds,” 6. He married his first wife in his late teens, with whom he had at least one child.
Monastic life After the northern Han traitors takeover of China, Bada fled to a Buddhist temple west of Nanchang, fearing for his safety given his connection to the House of Zhu, the Ming imperial family. The Qing regime had purged and executed Zhu Youlang and many other members of the Zhu family that ruled over the Ming. In 1645, he joined the monastic order at the age of nineteen. He spent about thirty years in the monkhood, studying the teachings of Chan Buddhism and the styles of past masters of calligraphy and painting.Wang and Barnhart, Master of the Lotus Garden, 14.
Later life Around 1680, Bada left the priesthood and refashioned himself as a professional painter and poet. He was dissatisfied with his monastic life all throughout the 1670s, during which he sought relationships outside the monastic order.Kim, “Lotus and Birds,” 7. He met the poet Qiu Lian and Qiu's father-in-law Hu Yitang in the early 1670s.Wang and Barnhart, Master of the Lotus Garden, 38. Despite his abandonment of priestly duties, Bada was still influenced by Buddhist teachings and remained close friends with several Buddhist monks.Wang and Barnhart, 57.
The Portrait of Geshan, painted in 1674, reflects Bada's refashioning from a monk to scholarly artist.Wang and Barnhart, 40. According to Wang Fangyu, a scholar and collector of Bada Shanren's work, the straw hat and loose, long robes make Bada look more like a scholar than a monk.
Bada also remarried soon after returning to Nanchang in 1680 but within a few years became single, dissatisfied with the marriage. For a while, his paintings reflected his unhappiness from the failed marriage. During this time, Bada also showed signs of eccentric behavior.Kim, “Lotus and Birds,” 20. Many believed he was feigning madness to eschew political involvement.Tynon, “Painting and Politics,” 107. From 1684 onward, Bada mostly stayed put in Nanchang, devoting himself to painting and calligraphy, and in the mid-1690s built a painting studio. With his scanty earnings, he lived in a small residential quarter in the southern part of Nanchang.Wang and Barnhart, Master of the Lotus Garden, 57.
Artistic pursuits
Calligraphy Bada's family members, including his grandfather and father, were calligraphers, whose works Bada studied from a young age. During his early years in the monastery, Bada practiced calligraphy by studying the works of Tang and Song calligraphers.Kim, "Lotus and Birds," 9. Not yet settled on a style, Bada employed a wide range of script types, including the standard script kaishu, fully cursive script caoshu, and semicursive script xingshu.Wang and Barnhart, Master of the Lotus Garden, 46–47. His standard scripts were modelled on the precisely executed kaishu script of Tang calligrapher Ouyang Xun.Wang and Barnhart, 47. In his cursive and semicursive scripts, Bada emulated the swift and fluid brushstrokes of Ming calligrapher Dong Qichang, achieving the flying white calligraphic effect.Wang and Barnhart, 48. Toward the end of his priesthood, Bada began to explore the exaggerated cursive script of Song calligrapher Huang Tingjian.
After leaving the monastery, Bada continued to study the Song calligrapher's writing, for instance copying his essay titled "Praising the Virtue of Wine."Wang and Barnhart, 55. He rendered it in a style not identical to Huang Tingjian's but combinative of various script types. His horizontal strokes were attenuated like Huang Tingjian's, while his corner strokes were sharp like Ouyang Xun's. Through the 1680s, Bada wrote in a style reflective of a balance between controlled and exaggerated forms.Wang and Barnhart, 65. By 1689, he had developed his own style. Starting in 1690, Bada began to study the styles of Wei and Jin calligraphers like Wang Xizhi and incorporated them in his writing. His brushstrokes became rounded and centered, deviating from his earlier characteristic sharp strokes.Wang and Barnhart, 67. Despite having established his own style, Bada remained devoted to the study of past calligraphic masters, including Wang Xizhi and the monk Huaisu, in the final years of his life.Wang and Barnhart, 70, 74.
Painting Bada Shanren's earliest extant paintings were produced during his years in the Buddhist monastery where he practiced painting as a hobby. He painted according to the literati tradition, studying the styles of past painters like Shen Zhou and Xu Wei.Kim, “Lotus and Birds,” 8–9. The subject of his paintings were simple objects like flowers, fruits, and vegetables. From 1681 to 1684, Bada treated painting as an outlet for his emotions, particularly his dissatisfaction with his second marriage. He expanded his repertoire of subjects to include animals like birds and fish in addition to flowers and vegetables. His earliest surviving landscape paintings are dated to this period. From 1684 to 1690, Bada most frequently painted myna birds, lotuses, and rocks.Wang and Barnhart, 66. From 1690 to 1694, he shifted his attention to fish, which he often depicted alone at the center of an empty composition. Starting in 1693, landscapes became a major subject of his work.
The brushwork in Bada's paintings closely mirrored his calligraphy. The paintings from his Buddhist years featured strokes consisting of thin and strong lines – reflective of a calligraphic style modeled on Ouyang Xun's writing. His brushstrokes in the Ink Flowers handscroll, dated 1666, were rendered like the diagonal strokes of the kaishu script. He moved the brush as he did in his calligraphy: by first straightening the tip of the brush and moving slowly and then by lifting the brush and moving more rapidly in the flying white manner. Bada's paintings from 1689 and 1690 mirrored his newly established style of calligraphy, featuring vigorous brushstrokes.
Poetry Bada started to study poetry when he was seven. The classical education that he received in his youth paved way for his own poetic endeavors, helping him amass knowledge of a wide repertoire of Chinese literature and ancient characters.Wang and Barnhart, Master of the Lotus Garden, 35. The poems that he wrote often included references to classical texts and obscure variants of characters, granting only those with the same background knowledge to decipher their meaning. Most of his poems were layered with metaphors and allusions. The obscurity of his language served reflected his familiarity with the Caodong sect of Buddhism. Bada's poems often ended with imagery.Hui-Shu Lee, “The Fish Leaves of the Anwan Album: Bada Shanren’s Journeys to a Landscape of the Past,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76, no. 4 (April 1989): 72.
Works
Overview The vast majority of Bada Shanren's works – 167 out of 179 – were produced between 1684 and 1705 during Bada's sixties and seventies. His paintings were often accompanied by his poems featuring his calligraphy. Most of his works were uncolored; the few that were colored were mostly landscape paintings. While his works changed in subject matter and brushwork over time, they all bore a composition that showcased his experimental approach to pictorial space.
Media Bada used ink and brush on paper to render his paintings, poetry, and calligraphy. He mostly painted on small album leaves in his early years and later preferred large hanging scrolls.Yvonne Tan, “Bada Shanren (1626-1705): Art and Life,” Asian Art Newspaper, June 6, 2016.
Early works (1659–1678) Only eleven of Bada's surviving works were produced during his years in the Buddhist temple. These include the Flower Studies album, the Vegetable and Fruits handscroll, the Lotus album, and the Ink Flowers handscroll. In most of his early works, his subjects were only partially represented at opposite corners of the canvas, the majority of which he left empty.
Works from 1680 to 1689 Bada's work during the 1680s were imbued with personal emotions and political sentiments. His animal subjects often wore human-like expressions.Kim, “Lotus and Birds,” 21. The angular brushstrokes in his works were achieved using the side hairs of the brush. Two of Bada's rare colored works come from this period: the Lotus and Rock hanging scroll from 1686 and the Bamboo album leaf from 1689.
Works from 1690 to 1705 During this period, Bada painted subjects ranging from flowers, animals, to landscapes. His 1694 album titled Birds, Flowers, and Landscapes featured all three kinds of subjects. His works displayed a wide tonal range, and his brushwork was brought to the fore due to the large scale of the hanging scrolls on which he often painted. Many of his works from this period were dedicated to his monk friends.
Anwan Album (1694)