Luo Pin - an Eccentric's Visions

Walking a Crane in a Bamboo Grove

Undated
From 'Figures and Landscapes, after Poems by Jin Nong'
Album of twelve leaves, ink and colour on paper, 24.3 x 30.7 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing

The Museum Rietberg Zürich, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, [til 12 July 2009; sj] presents an exhibition dedicated to the Chinese painter Luo Pin (1733–1799). In China, Luo Pin is renowned as one of the most original artists of his time. He was seen as an expert in the supernatural, a man who saw and painted ghosts. [...].

Drunken Zhong Kui
Dated 1762
Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 57.0 x 39.0 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing

Some of his contemporaries described Luo Pin as a virtuous scholar, a pious Buddhist, caring husband and devoted father; others saw him as a wayward eccentric and a charming partygoer. His multifaceted personality is also reflected in his versatility as an artist. This is the very first time that such a large selection of Luo Pin’s greatest works has been shown in the West. Among the highlights of the exhibition are a number of masterpieces loaned by the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum.

Luo Ping was born in 1733 in the city of Yangzhou, a flourishing cultural and commercial centre. His literary and artistic talents brought him attention at an early age and attracted the interest of Jin Nong* (1687–1763), one of the leading figures in Yangzhou bohemia, who accepted the 23-year-old Luo as his student. Until Jin’s death, the two men maintained an unusually close friendship, unique in the history of Chinese art. Both Jin and Luo were among the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, a loose group of individualistic painters who revolutionised Chinese art.

Full article here.

The Sword Terrace (detail)
Dated 1794
Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 100.3 x 27.4 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing

More photos here.

* Gallery of Jin Nong

Good reason to write a novel

I condemn slavery, I banish poverty,
I teach the ignorant, I treat
disease, I lighten the night,
I hate hatred.*

Victor Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885)

*That is what I am, and that is why I have written Les Misérables.




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More Strong than Time

Gap is widening

Well, actually it's no news that the gap between rich and poor is widening. Those who have eyes to read, ears to hear and a tiny bit capacity for remembering will know that this 'metapher' in 25 years has become a set phrase, being repeated every now and then.
In so far it's one of those 'news' of which I think with Thoreau a ready wit might have written it a twelve months or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.

Anyway, for those few on this planet who still consider Germany a land where milk and honey flows.

A new study by a German welfare organization shows that the gap between rich and poor is widening in the country, with the east and northwest lagging clearly behind the south.

Full article here.

Except of the title ...

... this BBC documentary is quite well done.













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Don't eat'em - teach'em

Just back from Chris God-free Morals, who offers a lesson about the Irony of our hypocritical attitude to animals, I am still overwhelmed.

Yes, rather than to eat or ride on them we should help them evolve. It's all about education, isn't it?