Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou

Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, Chinese painters who worked in the area of Yangzhou, in Jiangsu province, during the Qianlong era (1735–96) of the Qing dynasty. The group includes Jin Nong, Huang Shen, Gao Xiang, Li Fangying, Li Shan, Luo Ping, and Wang Shishen. Other artists, such as Gao Fenghan, Bian Shoumin, Min Zhen, and Hua Yan, are sometimes included. Although the grouping is more a geographical than a stylistic one, certain similarities are discernible: generally, the paintings by these artists are rather briefly sketched, small-scale renditions of the less monumental aspects of nature, and a certain creative independence of style is perceptible—thus the appellation baguai, “eight eccentrics,” or “eight strange ones.”