As the Opium War unfolded in Guangdong Province, the painter Su Renshan (1814– c.1850) exploded onto the art scene with a bold, paradigm-turning new voice. A Defiant Brush takes a fresh look at this underappreciated artist in the context of a nascent Chinese modernism.

In 1839 Guangzhou shifted from a cosmopolitan trading centre with a diverse art world into a place of violence. During the following decade, one voice of discontent and defiance rang out above all others: Su Renshan’s. His provocative, uncompromising, and sometimes ugly paintings berate Confucius for his hypocrisy. He turned his brush trace into graphic lines that mimic the printed page, and he depicted women as alternative exemplars of a moral intelligentsia. Yeewan Koon’s close readings of Su Renshan’s paintings within the rich contextual history of art in Guangdong Province reveal how the trauma of war prompted a re-evaluation of social and political values and the moral responsibility of a scholar-artist.

Published in association with Hong Kong University Press, China.