Tang Yin
The bohemian genius.
Tang Yin was a brilliant student who was accused of cheating and had to make his living as an artist. He painted landscapes and beautiful women.
Tang Yin was born in 1470 in Suzhou. His father ran a restaurant or tavern, so the family did not belong to the scholar class, but Tang Yin was highly gifted from an early age. He became friends with Wen Zhengming and moved in the circle around Shen Zhou. In 1498 he came first in the provincial examination in Nanjing, one of the most prestigious achievements open to a young man.
The following year he travelled to Beijing for the highest examination. There he was drawn into a scandal when a friend was accused of bribing his way to the questions in advance. Tang Yin was imprisoned, and although it is unclear how guilty he was, the path to an official career was closed for good. Back in Suzhou he supported himself as an artist and poet. He built a home he called the Peach Blossom Cottage and gained a reputation for leading a dissolute life.
Tang Yin studied painting with Zhou Chen and mastered both the techniques of court painting and the style of the scholars. He painted landscapes with sharp cliffs, elegantly drawn figures and especially pictures of beautiful women, often taken from literature and history. His poems are often bitter or ironic and deal with the transience of life.
He is counted among the Four Masters of the Ming. His dramatic life also made him a popular figure in novels, plays and later films, in which he is portrayed as a charming, unruly rogue. These stories have little to do with the historical Tang Yin, but they have kept his name alive.