Cat and Butterfly

Zhu Xubai joined the Imperial Army in 1851, but finding that his sympathies lay with the Taiping, he deserted and became a monk, taking the name Xu Gu. Alienated and without roots, he traveled between Yangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai selling his paintings. He had been trained in a portrait shop to paint realistic ancestor images much in demand at that time, but the majority of his paintings give little evidence of traditional training. His creativity lay in devising a light, fresh means of rendering the impression of things as they are seen. Xu Gu invoked the 18th century Yangzhou Eccentric Hua Yen's (1682–1765) humorous animal subjects, though he did not attempt Hua's technical virtuosity. Active viewing is required to fuse the dotted outline suggesting the cat's fur and the impressionistic strokes of his landscape.