Shide Laughing at the Moon

This large solitary figure is the Chan (or Zen) disciple Shide, who lived during the Tang dynasty (618-907). Found in the wilderness as a homeless youth, Shide was set to work as a menial in the monastic kitchen of Guoqing Temple in the Tiantai Mountains of Zhejiang Province, where he later befriended an eccentric local hermit by the name of Hanshan. The two became constant companions and were famous for their bizarre behavior, especially the odd statements and manic laughter with which they often responded to ordinary questions.

Dressed in rags and with unkempt hair, Shide is often shown with a crude kitchen broom, which in this painting lies behind him on the ground. Standing with a crazed expression before a dark vertical wall of rock, head thrown back and mouth open in lunatic laughter, he gazes past dangling creepers to the pale full disk of the moon. Typical of Zhe School painting, which was mainly active in Zhejiang and Fujian Provinces during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the brushwork is fluid and vigorous with bold areas of skillfully graded ink tones.