Wu Bin (吴彬)

Wu Bin (吴彬) (1937-unknown), Chinese, Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a late Ming dynasty painter, revolutionized religious art with his Sixteen Luohan series. Renowned for blending Song-Yuan brushwork with surreal imagination, he pioneered a "Mannerist" style. His Luohan figures, characterized by exaggerated features and ethereal drapery rendered in iron-wire strokes, inhabit mystical landscapes of S-curved mountains and spiraling clouds. Wu’s works infused Buddhist philosophy, using motifs like grotesque rocks and ancient trees to symbolize cosmic unity. His visionary aesthetics, bridging spiritual abstraction and formal distortion, influenced Qing eccentrics like Bada Shanren and Japanese Zen painting, cementing his legacy as a precursor to Eastern Baroque expression.