Li Fangyi was born into a family of official eunuchs, and after his friend Yuan Ming called him Li Bi (not Shu Han Li Bi), the Marquis of Yi of the Tang Dynasty, his sixth ancestor served as a Minghubu Langzhong, and his father Li Yufeng served successively in Liangguang and Yunnan Zhixian and prefects, and then transferred to Fujian Grain Yidao, in charge of grain administration and transportation, twice as a Beijing official, and later as an envoy in Fujian.
In the sixth year of Yongzheng (1728), the Yongzheng Emperor was recommended by the whole country to update the rule of officials, and Li Fangyi was recommended as "Virtuous and Good Fangzheng". The following year, Li Yufeng went to the capital to report for duty, and the thirty-four-year-old Li Fangyi followed his father to Beijing. When he saw him, the Yongzheng Emperor took pity on Li Yufeng's old age and asked, "Is there a son who came with you?" "The fourth son, Fang, came with him." Asked, "What is the position, and is it better to win the official?" "Raw members are also sexually friendly, and they are not suitable for officials." Yongzheng smiled and said, "Those who have not learned to adopt children and then marry." "Immediately summoned, Tian Wenjing, the governor of Hedong in charge of Henan and Shandong, was specially assigned to the coastal Zhi County.
In the eighth year of Yongzheng (1730), Li Fang was appointed to Le'anzhi County, Shandong. At the time of the summer and autumn of that year, the Le'an flood was a disaster, and thousands of families were adrift, and the situation was urgent. Without the approval of his superiors, Li Fangping opened a warehouse for relief, ordered the use of 1,200 stones of imperial grain in stock, used work as a substitute for relief, and recruited people to build embankments, alleviating the disaster. However, he was immediately impeached by the Qingzhou government for privately opening an official warehouse. Governor Tian Wenjing did not pay any attention, but praised Li Fangxing for his courage and merit to the people. After the disaster, after field investigation, Li Fangyi wrote "Xiaoqinghe Discussion", "Outline of the People's Communion", "Shandong Water Conservancy Pipe Peep" and other works. In the 10th year of Yongzheng (1732), he was promoted to Juzhou Zhizhou for meritorious service. In the twelfth year of Yongzheng (1734), he was transferred back to Le'anzhi County, and in the winter of the same year, he was transferred to Lanshanzhi County.
In the thirteenth year of Yongzheng (1735), he was deposed and imprisoned for opposing the reclamation order of the new governor Wang Wenjun, and he wrote a letter to directly explain the shortcomings, angering his superiors, and became the "Lanshan Unjust Case" that shocked the government and the opposition at that time. The people were in an uproar: "If the public is guilty of being guilty of the people, please go around and see the prison", peasants in lanshan and juzhou flocked to Qingzhou prison with their own chicken rice wine. The prison guards were not allowed to see it, so the people threw the money and food they brought into the high walls of the prison, and the wine jars left behind blocked the gates and corridors of the prison.
This unjust imprisonment dragged on for three years. It was not until the first year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1736) that Qianlong pursued the matter of reclamation and wrongful strategy and worried the people, and dismissed Wang Shijun, and was rehabilitated. On that day, the second drum, the document reached Qingzhou, and That night Li Fangyi was released. Li Fang entered the capital to see him, and waited under the western locust tree in the military machine room, and the university scholar Zhu Shi pointed out to the kings and ministers: This is Li Lanshanye of ZhiXian County, who dissuaded the reclamation. Those who want to see but cannot squeeze forward look at each other with their hands raised and say: Is it the one who is thin and long, and whose eyes are very divine? Emperor Shaozong's uncle Zhao Guolin and Li Fangbin's father, who was a jinshi in the same year, shook Li Fangbin's hand and said, "Li Gongnan has a son." After seeing him, he was transferred to Anhui to serve as a county magistrate, and Li Fangping took a leave of absence to return to his hometown to serve his elderly mother instead of taking office.
Four years after Qianlong (1739), Li Fangyin's parents died one after another, and he served at home for six years. At the end of the period of observance, he was appointed as the commander of Qianshan County in Anhui Province, quanzhi Chuzhou Prefecture, and was soon transferred to Hefei County Order. At this time, when there was a famine, Li Fangping, in accordance with the past practice, set up his own disaster relief measures, and refused to "honor" his superiors, and was hated, too conservative and falsely accused of "perverting the law by corruption", and dismissed the official. After twenty years of serving as a county order, li fangzhi was trapped by Taishou three times, and Li Fangyi said with great emotion: The two Han officials ruled, too shouchengzhi; the later generations of officials ruled, too guarded badly.
After Li Fang's resignation from office, he lived in Jinling (Nanjing) in Nanjing, where he borrowed the garden, claiming to be the owner of the garden, and often went to Yangzhou to sell paintings for food and clothing. In his later years, he wrote a poem saying: "I am a farmer who often begs rice, and the plum garden sells plum blossoms all day long", and the mark of "changing rice for subsistence" is often painted on the painting. He was very close to the great poet Yuan Ming and the seal engraver Shen Fengguo, who lived in Nanjing, and often traveled together, which was sometimes called "Three Immortals Out of the Cave".
In Nanjing, Li Fangyi also became acquainted with the seal engraver Ding Jing. Ding Jing was proud of the shore, and at that time, it was rare for thousands of gold to have a seal, but Li Fangbin had received several seals from Ding Jing. Some people think it is very strange, Ding Jing himself said in the "Yin Bao": Tongzhou Li Fang bing Qingjiang, gong painting plum, proud of the shore. The dismissal of the official yu Jinling Xiangshi Garden, Ri and Shen Shuluo, Yuan Zicai tour... Give love to his poems, send them for several prints, and give a branch of spring.
In the nineteenth year of Qianlong (1754), Li Fangyi, who had been selling paintings in Nanjing for five years, returned to his hometown due to ill health. When he was seriously ill, he struggled to write to Yuan Ming: "Fang Bing returned for two days, and he was sick!" Now he will be born to the end of the world and the matter to his excellency. Fang Bing was born and unheard of, borrowing the light of the son's text in the ghost palace! September 2 bye White". This is to entrust Yuan Ming to write an epitaph for himself. By the time Yuan Ming received this letter, Li Fangyi had been dead for many days. According to the messenger, "one day before the death of our Lord, the life was lifted up, and the book of illness was also written." It was September 3, 1754, when he was 59 years old and had a "choking disease" (esophageal cancer), and the doctor said: "This huaiqi negative qi, depressed and uncomfortable reason, can not be calmed by medicine." Before dying, he wrote down his life's regrets on his coffin: "I am not sorry to die, I pity my hands!" ”
Li Fang is good at painting pines, bamboo, orchids, chrysanthemums, plums, miscellaneous flowers and insects and fish, and can also paint figures and landscapes, especially fine painting plums. The works are vertical and horizontal, the ink is dripping, the thick head is chaotic, and the ink is not informal, which is intended to be between green vines, white suns and bamboo. Painting plum is known for its thin and hard, old stem and new branches, side of the curved, the famous inscription of the plum poem has the sentence "not to be destroyed and not bizarre". He also likes to paint pine bamboo in the wind. Gongshu, Noh poems, and later generations have "Plum Blossom Lou Poetry Grass", only twenty-six poems, most of which are scattered on paintings. The paintings are passed down as "Wind and Bamboo Diagram", "Swimming Fish Diagram" and so on.
Zheng Banqiao greatly admired Li Fangyi's painting skills and spoke highly of them. Ink bamboo is Zheng Banqiao's most skilled skill, but his "Title Li Fangyin Ink Bamboo Book" still believes that Li's ink bamboo "dongpo, and fearful" even Su Shi, the holy hand who painted ink bamboo, Wen Tongdu "feared", which shows its high evaluation. As for the Momei that Li Fangbin is best at, it is more specific and higher evaluated, and Zheng Banqiao said in the "Title Li Fangbin Painting plum long scroll" made five years after Li Fangbin's death:
Orchid bamboo painting, everyone does, not good. Plum blossoms, the world does not do, even more not good. But the lay monks themselves do it, and every time they see a large section of charcoal to support my eyes, it is really evil and disgusting. When the fourth brother of Qingjiang Li did nothing alone, it was difficult to see the work. Therefore, his painting plum is the first in the world. The day is staring, the night is conceived, the body is forgotten in the clothes, the mouth is forgotten in the taste, and then the god of plums, the sex of Dame, the rhyme of plums, the love of plums, plums also bow down, into its cut and carving and can not come out. The so-called cutter is never cut, but the real cut; the so-called cutter, never portrayed, is the true portrayal. It is advisable to stop the song and do not go to heaven, and those who do not know what is going on, ask the Qingjiang, do not know themselves, nor can they tell others, foolishly come to Tongzhou, get to see this volume, the spirit is full of excitement, and the excitement is vivid. This volume of new branches and ancient stems, mixed with flying, makes people look for its rise and fall, and I want to sit under it, do ten days of homework, and then go to the ear. Qianlong 25 May 13 Banqiao Zheng Xie comic title.
On this painting, he also inscribed a four-word poem: Megan Razor, Plum Moss Ye Ye, Several Petals of Ice Soul, Thousand Autumn Ancient Snow.
According to Zheng Banqiao's "Inscription Huang Shen Painting Ding Youyu Elephant Scroll" composed at the same time, "Hao Xiangshan, the servant of Qingjiang Li Gong, baoqi's main pen and ink is like an arch wall, and the suo inscription is written on the old man of Banqiao." "Zheng Banqiao came to Tongzhou for the second time in the early summer of Qianlong Twenty-five (1760) when he was sixty-eight years old, and Li Fangyi's attendant Hao Xiangshan took out the painting of the master he visited and asked Zheng Banqiao to write an inscription. Zheng You, feeling his original deep friendship with Li Fangyi and Hao Xiangshan's loyalty to his master, gladly ordered his pen and wrote the inscription and poem.
In fact, Li Fang's love for Mei is AiMei's disposition, Aimei's character, and the shooting out of his own personality. "The intellectuals said that Li Gong was a sketch of his own family, and Qingjiang just smiled." "Sketching for one's own family", a phrase breaks the mentality and connotation of Li Fang's painting of plums. Its title "Plum Blossom Roll" Cloud: Give sex to mei, that is, no plum can be seen and what is seen is nothing but plum. Sun Moon Star Mei Ye, Mountains and Rivers Yue Yi Mei Ye, Shuo De Hong Cai Mei Ye, Song Boy Dancer Yi Mei Ye ... Mei ye who knows me, mei also those who sin against me. Li Fangbin's friend Yuan Ming commented on his plum: "Proud bones are the roots of the plum tree, wizards are scattered as plum tree flowers, lonely stems are long and the wind of heaven and earth is drawn, and the incense heart does not die under the frost."