foremost painter of the Anhui (Four Masters of Anhui) (Xinan) school, a centre of painting in southeast China during the Qing period that was noted for its unusual land features, especially of Huang Shan (Huang Mountains) (“Yellow Mountain”), which frequently appears in paintings of the school.

Jiang Tao adopted his Buddhist name Hongren after the collapse of the Ming dynasty and the death of his mother. He was known for being quiet and retiring, and his paintings reveal something of the same attitude. While it is said that he started to paint at an early age to help support his family, virtually all of his extant works are from his later years. His paintings are restrained and cool to the point of being brittle, yet they have a precision of structure that gives them an unusual strength in spite of their apparent fragility. They generally exhibit an intensification of characteristics of the work of the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368) master Ni Zan.