Hong Ren

Who was Hong Ren?

Hong Ren, who is also known as Hongren, was an early Qing painter and a member of the Anhui school of painting. His birth name was Jiang Fang. After the fall of the Ming dynasty he became a monk, as did Zhu Da, Shitao, and Kun Can. They protested the fall of the Ming dynasty by becoming monks. Hong Ren's style has been said to "[represent] the world in a dematerialized, cleansed version ... revealing his personal peace through the liberating form of geometric abstraction."