Luo Ping (1733-1799), known as the youngest of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou and a follower of Jin Nong (1687-1763), was one of the most versatile and compelling artists of his time. While his work covers all major painting subjects and exhibits great stylistic and conceptual variety, his personality appears equally multifaceted. Contemporaries and later critics characterized him variously as a cultural arriviste, a Confucian scholar of great moral dignity, a Buddhist monk, a loving and devout husband, an «eccentric» with strong leanings toward the supernatural, and even an anti-Manchu dissident. Structured as a comprehensive and largely chronological account of the artist’s life and his interactions with patrons of different geo-cultural environs, namely Yangzhou and Beijing, this study attempts to identify the factors that contributed to the unfolding of the master’s artistic voice. It includes an extensive examination of Luo’s personal, literary, and artistic engagement with Buddhism, which constituted a significant but hitherto obscure facet of his life and work.
