Gāo Fènghàn 高凤翰 / 高鳳翰

Gao Fenghan 高凤翰 / 高鳳翰 (Gāo Fènghàn, Kao Feng-Han) was born into a wealthy family of scholar officials in Jiaozhou, Shandong province. Raised in a highly cultured environment, he developed an interest in poetry, painting, and seal-carving in his early youth, when he also began to collect old seals and inkstones. In adulthood, Gao's travels as an official exposed him to artistic trends outside his home province and further shaped his development as an artist. From 1729 to 1734, he served as an assistant magistrate in Shexian, Anhui Province, before a new assignment took him to Taizhou, where he stayed until 1737, when illness caused him to lose both his government position and the use of his right hand. Rather than give up painting, however, Gao retreated into a Buddhist monastery in Yangzhou and relearned how to write and paint with his left hand. Examples of painting and calligraphy from the second phase of his artistic career are consequently much different from his earlier works. A free-spirited character who was interested in unconventional artistic techniques, he was closely associated with the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou" (Yángzhōu bāguài 揚州八怪), whose bohemian, often alcohol-fueled lifestyles were legendary during the eighteenth century.