Fifteen Bamboos

Hua Yan, a poet, calligrapher and painter, is generally recorded as one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou. While Hua was influenced by the personal style of earlier eccentric masters including Shi Tao and Zhu Da, he stands out as a creative master who synthesized different stylistic trends of the seventeenth century in a fresh, distinctive way. Within this sparse composition, his personal brush idiom emerges in dry, delicate, sooty strokes, different from the fluid, wet, brushwork that dominated early eighteenth century Yangzhou styles. This rare, early work by Hua is datable by the artists seals on the painting to between 1724-1731. There are eight accompanying colophons by five different poets. The one by Wu Xizhi (1746-1818) reads Autumn sounds, softly, softly urge on the gentle ripples; Suddenly we see these fifteen trees by Young Master Xiao (Hua Yan) The moon not yet risen, no visitor yet arrived; Himself he transplants these bluegreen sleeves, in time with the chilly weather.