The brush alternative: Gao Qipei, finger painting, and boundaries of originality

Qing dynasty official Gao Qipei (1660–1734) built an artistic reputation and lineage as the "father of finger painting." His finger painting inspired artists of disparate backgrounds and styles—from Manchu and bannerman artists in Beijing to key members of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou. Zheng Xie (1693–1765) has praised Gao as one of the very few people who managed to “break free from the cage of the ancients” while the most prominent artists of their times failed. As much as painting with one’s fingers, hands, and nails does create different line qualities and visual effects than painting with brush, does using a brush alternative guarantee artistic originality?

Artists who practiced finger painting capitalized on its association with a more direct and more “natural” way of painting. Nevertheless, paintings done with the brush alternative were still judged with the traditional standards of bimo (brush and ink). Although not an agent of radical change, finger painting provided a fresh and marketable means to venture outside of conventional brushstrokes and styles. This paper investigates the role of finger painting in seventeenth and eighteenth-century art in China as artists explored a new relationship between nature and visual representation. Focusing on the legacy of Gao Qipei’s finger painting, I consider its impact on new artistic trends in the Qing court and the Yangzhou art circle.