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Ren Xiong [Jen Hsiung; zi Weichang; hao Xiangpu]
(b Xiaoshan County, Zhejiang Province, 1820; d 1857). Chinese painter. He is grouped with his brother Ren Xun (1835–93), his son Ren Yu (1853–1901) and his student REN YI as one of the ‘Four Rens’ who dominated late 19th-century painting in Shanghai (see CHINA, §V, 3(viii)(b) and SHANGHAI SCHOOL). He painted several popular painting manuals for subjects such as ancient heroes, immortals and hermits. He introduced into his conventional depictions of cultural heroes a sense of metaphysical inquiry and radical self-doubt that provides an insight into mid-19th century China, on the brink of cataclysmic change. In his Zihua xiang (‘Self-portrait’; Beijing, Pal. Mus.; see CHINA, fig. 131) it is not entirely clear whether the figure is dressed as a peasant or as a monk; his bared chest is both defiant and feminine. His tonsure could be that of a monk or of a soldier. The inscription speaks of a rejection of idealism and a loss of identity.
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