Tang emerged from the vital merchant class of
Suzhou, at a very low economic level of the son of a restaurant operator. Contrary to some accounts, he seems to have studied assiduously during his youth, paying little attention to material gains. His genius, which would later gain him renown as the supreme talent of the
Jiangnan area (Southern China), soon drew him into the wealthy, powerful, and talented social circles of Suzhou. Wen Zhengming became his friend; Wen's father, Wen Lin (1445–99), acted as something of a patron, making the right connections for him. He was a brilliant student and later became the protégé of Wen Lin. His friends in the Suzhou scholarly circles included
Shen Zhou,
Wu Kuan (1436–1504) and Zhu Yunming. In 1498 Tang Yin came first in the provincial examinations in
Nanjing, the second stage in the
Imperial examination ladder. The following year he went to the capital to sit in the national examinations, but he and his friend Xu Jing (?–1507) were accused of bribing the servant of one of the chief examiners to give them the examination questions in advance. All parties were jailed, and Tang Yin returned to Suzhou in disgrace, his high hopes for a distinguished civil service career dashed forever. Denied further official progress, he pursued a life of pleasure and earned a living by selling his paintings. That mode of living brought him into disrepute with a later generation of artist-critics (for example,
Dong Qichang) who felt that financial independence was vital to enable an artist to follow his own style and inspiration. While Tang is associated with paintings of feminine beauty, his paintings (especially landscapes) otherwise exhibit the same variety and expression of his peers and reveal a man of both artistic skill and profound insight. ==Works==