The Eight Immortals is an excellent example of Ren Yi's figure paintings which were inspired by Chen Hongshou and Ren Xun. This work features high quality brushwork for eccentric potrayal of figures. The immortals stand imposingly, self-absorbed and detached. They do not look at the viewer. Here, Ren Yi seems to have emerged from the shadows of his masters. His strokes are more calligraphic and spontaneous, and resemble less the 'iron-wire lines' of Ren Xiong or Chen Hongshou.Ren painted many figures of cowherds, hermits and immortals but he seldom painted them as a set. This set of paintings was one of Ren's masterpieces. Dr Tan Tse Chor, the donor of this collection of paintings, considered it so precious that he buried it in his grandfather's rubber plantation to prevent their destruction during the Japanese Occupation in the 1940s.
