Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou Artist. Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou is the name for a group of eight Chinese painters active in the eighteenth-century, who were known in the Qing Dynasty for rejecting the orthodox ideas about painting in favor of a style deemed expressive and individualist. The term was also used because they each had strong personalities at variance with the conventions of their own time. Most of them were from impoverished or troubled backgrounds. Still the term is, generally, more a statement about their artistic style than any social eccentricities. The eight had an influence and association with painters like Gao Fenghan, as well as several others.