Lü Ruda 吕如达

Specialities: Landscape · Bird and flower

Lü Ruda (吕如达), also known by his artistic name Master of the Hundred Chrysanthemums Studio (百菊斋主), is one of the most revered figures in contemporary Chinese ink painting. Born in the early years of the twentieth century, he has witnessed — and in many ways embodied — the full arc of modern Chinese art, from the turbulent Republican era to the present day.

A Life in Ink

Lü Ruda's artistic journey began under the tutelage of masters who traced their lineage directly to the great painters of the Song and Ming dynasties. His early training was rigorous and classical: thousands of hours copying the masters, learning to see not with the eye but with the brush. This foundation gave him what critics call "bone structure" — the invisible architecture that makes a great painting hold together across time.

Over the following decades, he developed a mature style characterised by extraordinary compositional boldness, an almost musical sense of rhythm in his brushwork, and a profound ability to capture the spirit of a subject — be it a misty mountain range, a spray of chrysanthemums, or a pair of cranes in autumn light — with an economy of means that still astonishes viewers today.

The Hundred Chrysanthemums Studio

The studio name he chose — Hundred Chrysanthemums Studio (百菊斋) — speaks to both a lifetime dedication to the chrysanthemum as artistic subject and a philosophical commitment to its symbolism: integrity, resilience and beauty untethered from worldly ambition. For Lü Ruda, painting chrysanthemums is not repetition but deepening — each work a new conversation with the same inexhaustible subject.