Alias: CheungYueng, Tang Fu, Knife Man, Momo Man.

Country: China

Ethnic group: Han nationality

Dynasty: Qing dynasty

Place of Birth: Xinghua County, Yangzhou District, Jiangsu Province

Date of birth: A.D. 1682.

Time of death: A.D. 1756.

Occupation: painter and calligrapher

Main achievements: It has expanded the expressive field of freehand brushwork flower-and-bird painting.

Representative works: Li W Flower and Bird Album, Li W Flower Album.

Li Wei, also known as Li Yi, was a famous painter and calligrapher in China in the Qing Dynasty. He was born in a.d. 1682 in Xinghua county, Yangzhou prefecture, Jiangsu province. He is one of the eight eccentrics in Yangzhou.

From Li W to Li Eel, although it is only a glyph change, the name change contains the ups and downs of his life.

Li W's W, in addition to the same pronunciation as "eel", also reads tuó. W, like catfish, is a pig, a dragon and a "god beast". When he was a magistrate of Linzi County, people still called him tuó. Even at that time, many people emphasized to each other not to misread Li W's official taboos. Later, when Li W was down and out in the rivers and lakes, he called himself "Li Eel" and wrote it on the painting, as if he were really a small fish living in the mud between rivers.

From catfish to eel, from beast to ugly little fish, it is not a true portrayal of Li Yi's bumpy fate of "two changes in fame and one fall". Frustrated in official career, I have to make a living by selling paintings, and I can never seek self-balance and comfort. How can you say that you are a kind of god beast? He admitted that he was an ordinary eel, which showed that he clearly admitted that he was depressed.

In the fiftieth year of Kangxi, Li Yi opened an account with a total of 10,000 people. Three years later, he was presented to the court for his good painting. At that time, the court painters insisted on the "orthodox" painting method, which Yi Li didn't like very much. Under the constraint of this style of painting and the exclusion and jealousy of colleagues, Li Yi finally chose to leave.

After three years of Qianlong, Li Yi became the magistrate of tengxian. During his tenure as county magistrate, Li Yi was diligent in political affairs, fair and honest, and was deeply loved by local people. Unfortunately, he was fired for offending his boss, and lived in Yangzhou for a hundred years, making a living by selling paintings.

Li Yi used to be a court painter, and his painting skills should not be underestimated. In his early years, he studied under Jiang Hegao, and his painting style was similar to theirs. Later, influenced by Shi Tao, his painting style changed, and he was good at flowers, bamboo stones and pines and cypresses.

When I was a court painter in my early years, the court meticulous painting was very accomplished, with meticulous and rigorous painting style and my own statutes. After middle age, he began to turn to freehand brushwork, with rough and bold style, far-reaching artistic conception, rich emotion and brilliant talent, forming a unique style of "ink and wash blending into fun".

In Li Yi's later paintings, he likes to write inscriptions and scribble on books, which not only does not destroy the artistic conception of the painting, but enriches the picture. This feature had a great influence on flower-and-bird painting in the late Qing Dynasty.

In the twenty-first year of Qianlong, Li Yi died in Nantong in September of the same year at the age of 7 1 year after making Peony Pine and Vine Map, Flower Map and Miscellaneous Album.

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Yangzhou, a figure at the end of the painting