任博悟   Ren, Bo-Wu   1914~1999

Born in Beijing in 1914, Bowu Ren received traditional education of Confucianism at his tender age. He was well read in the Four Books and Five Classics as well as the Hundred Schools of Thought. He learned clerical script from his father Meipin Ren and then dabbled in Han steles, running script and standard script. After enrolling in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University, Ren learned landscape painting from Qianzhong Xiao and seal carving from Baishi Qi with an additional focus on Qi’s techniques in carving stone, Musa basjoo, chrysanthemum and crab, which was why his early works seemed bold and uninhibited. He toured all over the scenic spots in southeastern China after he turned thirty, which not only opened up his horizons but also radically transmuted his creative style of landscape painting. Ren’s landscape paintings enjoyed considerable reputation for the profoundness of their artistic conception. In terms of calligraphy, he not only modeled his standard script upon Wei Steles, Xun Ouyang and Suiliang Chu, but also delved deep into great and small seal script. Drawing merits from Xizhi Wang, Fu Mi, Shi Su, Tingjian Huang and the bronze inscriptions, his running script appeared robust and magnificent. His poems were ethereal, graceful, and imbued with philosophical implications, bearing more than a passing resemblance to those by Wei Wang, Shen Cen and Haoran Meng, which earned him the fame as a great master of poetry, calligraphy and painting. He became a Buddhist monk at the age of 56, and his paintings and calligraphic works thenceforth showed an eclectic mix of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, always offering the viewers an experience of epiphany. Ren was a member of the art education committee in the Ministry of Education and a member of the review committee in the Chinese-Japanese Calligraphy Association. He also cultivated many talents by teaching at National Chung Hsing University and National Taiwan Academy of Arts. He devoted himself to Buddhist studies after converting to Buddhism, and founded the Dharma Master Ru Yu Scholarship for Buddhist Studies which attracted favorable criticisms from the cultural and art circle as well as the Buddhist community.