Bulletin Number One 1985

feelings of desolution and horror found in Li Po's poem. Instead, he used delicate colours to tint the trees growing luxuriantly on the cliffs and added many vivid details of travellers among mountains or resting in tea houses and wineshops. It goes to show that Luo Pin was firmly rooted in the visually appealing taste of the eighteenth century. Hua Yan (1682-1756 )， a native of Shanghang, Fujian province,lived mainly in Hangzhou, Zhejiang and spent some years in Yangzhou. Hua Yan was friendly with the 'Yangzhou Eccentrics' Gao Xiang and Jin Nong and shared similar artistic aims. Therefore, Hua Yan has been occasionally grouped with the 'Eight Eccentrics'. In spite of his professional status, he ‘read books to broaden his knowledge, practised self-cultivation to correct his moral behaviour.' Thus Hua Yan did not only possess the technical proficiency and versatility expected of a professional painter, he had also acquired that special expression in brush manner that was unique to scholar painting. In this way Hua Yan stood apart from the ‘Eccentric Masters' and occupied a special place in the development of painting in eighteenth-century Yangzhou. Of the eight paintings by Hua Yan included in the exhibition, Snow Landscape with Camel (Plate 5) is by far the most outstanding. The painting was dated to 1746 which belongs to the artist's late period. The focal point of the painting is the old camel, which Hua Yan brought to life with dry lines that are vigorous and precise. Its companion, who wears a brigh t red cloak that captures one's eyes easily, peeks out from a yurt. The artist captured for us a rare moment of sympathetic interaction between the man and the animal. A bleak evening scene was created by means of light ink washes for the darkened sky and a solitary wild goose flying Plate 5 Hua Yan; Snowy Landscape with Camel, (dated 1746); Hanging scroll, ink and colour on paper, 139.5 x 59 cm RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 17