Pines on Peaks above the Clouds, from the album Flowers, Rocks, Bamboo, and Landscapes

Born into a wealthy family of scholar officials from Shandong province, Gao Fenghan was raised in a highly cultured environment and provided with a good education. He was a free-spirited character who was interested in unconventional artistic techniques, and was closely associated with the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou," whose bohemian, often alcohol-fueled lifestyles were legendary during the eighteenth century. One of Gao's most distinctive qualities was his ability to paint with his left hand. He developed this skill after a partial paralysis on his right side in 1737, and kept it up even after his recovery. Virtually all Chinese artists painted with their right hand, regardless of which hand was naturally dominant, so Gao's left-handed paintings stand out as a true oddity in the history of Chinese art.

This image belongs to an album of twelve landscapes and nature studies that Gao painted in 1733, four years before he began painting with his left hand. According to its inscription, Gao created the painting using his fingers as well as a brush, and indeed, traces of the artist's fingerprints are evident in some of the black ink lines and dots. Finger painting was briefly in vogue among some of the eccentric Yangzhou artists and a few painters even grew long fingernails specifically to use in their art. Gao's painting depicts a scene of pine trees clinging to mountain peaks above a sea of clouds. The imagery looks as if it could have been painted from life, but it was most likely done in a studio. Actual plein air painting was extremely rare in China, although artists did sometimes use real places and sights as inspiration for their works.

INSCRIPTION: PINES ON PEAKS ABOVE THE CLOUDS
雲外風諠寫玉聲。
用指頭墨法寫意。
鳳翰
印：「頭指禅」
Beyond the clouds, the wind bellows, and I sketch its marvelous sound
Using fingers to paint, in a freehand style.
Fènghàn
Seal: The Chan [ Zen ] of Fingers