In ancient China, scholar-officials often showed lofty, loyal and modest intentions when painting and writing poems. However, due to various historical and social factors, these scholars often take the attitude of staying away from life, escaping from reality, living in seclusion in the mountains and rivers, and caring for natural mountains and rivers. Most of their works are mainly about leisure and self-entertainment, even poems with feelings are general.
However, there are exceptions. Zheng Banqiao's poems on paintings among the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou are different from others. He got rid of the traditional mode of painting with poetry or painting with poetry. Every painting must be inscribed with a poem, and only when it is well inscribed can it achieve the "picturesque image" and "the meaning of poetry attacking painting". Coupled with Zheng Banqiao's unique calligraphy, his poems and paintings immediately reflect and infinitely expand the breadth of the picture.
Zheng Banqiao was born in a scholarly family, a scholar in the last years of Kangxi, a juren in the tenth year of Yongzheng, and a scholar in the first year of Qianlong. At the age of 50, he was the county magistrate of Fanxian and Weixian in Shandong.
Zheng Banqiao was educated by Confucianism since he was a child, and his thoughts included the idea of "benefiting the people through success". It is this kind of thought that made him take such measures as "opening a warehouse to help the people who suffered from famine all the year round" and "donating sincerity to make up for the losses" in his official career, which aroused the dissatisfaction of corrupt officials and evil gentry and was relegated. The four widely circulated words "muddleheaded" are the truest portrayal of Zheng Banqiao's heart.
Zheng Banqiao's Poetry and Calligraphy