colourful figure in the history of Chinese painting who is known for having been a child prodigy, bureaucrat, apparent madman, and painter.

As a young man, Xu repeatedly failed to pass civil service examinations. During the 1550s and '60s he did succeed in gaining a reputation as a poet and painter, but as his reputation as an artist grew, so did his reputation as a drunkard and a madman. In 1566 he stabbed his wife to death and was sent to jail, later being released because he was deemed insane. He died in poverty.

While he is often ranked among the Zhe school artists (such as Dai Jin), who perpetuated the by-then conservative traditions of the Southern Song academy style of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, he was by temperament and painting style more like such 17th-century Individualists as Shitao and Zhu Da. In his paintings he used broad, dramatic washes of ink and dynamic, cursory lines, suggesting an emotional confrontation between the artist and his materials.