So far, there are no treatises on Yang Fa, one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, and his calligraphy works and paintings. Historical records about him is sparse, while most of the relevant articles and passages gleaned from journals and books are either dubious or incomplete. Therefore, in this paper, I tried to fully reconstruct the biography and work of Yang Fa, based on extant studies.

There are five chapters. Chapter 1 explains how, in the beginning of my study, I gathered all the scattered information and produced a catalogue. Chapter 2 addresses the many problems related to Yang’s life and his courtesy name (zì) and art names (hào) arising from studying the signature and stamp on his works, and also probes into Yang’s association. Chapter 3 investigates the influence of early generations on Yang’s calligraphy – mainly the period from the late Ming dynasty to the middle Qing dynasty, but also as early as the stone inscriptions from Han dynasty – and the influence Yang had on calligraphers from the late Qing dynasty. Chapter 4 summarizes the artistic achievements of Yang Fa and analyzes forged works found on the market. Chapter 5 is the conclusion of my entire study.

The main scripts Yang used in his works are seal and clerical scripts; running and cursive scripts are less common and only appear in some of the paratext and signature. His paintings are also few in number. Moreover, literature on Yang Fa is full of mistakes and there are a lot of controversies in regard to the circulation of his works, which is why I decided to analyze his signature and stamp as a way to determine the chronology of his works, to distinguish real and forged works, and to establish his position in history.