Gu Hongzhong
Southern Tang, Song dynasty · Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms art, Chinese painting, Figure painting
The story
Almost everything known about Gu Hongzhong comes from one commission. He was a painter in attendance at the court of the Southern Tang, one of the kingdoms that divided southern China in the 10th century, and its last ruler, Li Yu, gave him an unusual task. The minister Han Xizai, a gifted official who had come south from the north, was said to spend his nights at lavish parties instead of on state business. Li Yu sent Gu to attend those gatherings, remember what he saw and paint it.
The result is The Night Revels of Han Xizai, a long handscroll unrolled scene by scene, in which the host appears again and again, listening to the pipa, a Chinese lute, watching a dancer, resting, and seeing his guests off. Accounts differ on why Han lived this way. One tradition holds that he played the dissolute on purpose so that he would not be made chief minister of a kingdom he expected to fall.
Gu's own birth and death dates are not recorded. The scroll in the Palace Museum in Beijing is generally regarded as a later copy made under the Song dynasty, probably in the 12th century, and his original is lost.
