CHAO MENG-FU (1274)

Literary name TZU-ANG.

Painter and calligrapher who, trough occasionally condemned for having served in the foreign Mongol court (Yüan dynasty, 1279-1368), has been honoured as an early master within the tradition of literari painters (wen-jen-hua) who sought personal expression rather than superficial beauty.

Chao Meng-fu, though he was a descendant of the Imperial family on the Sung dynasty (960-1279) and had been educated in the Imperial university in 1286 accepted service in the newly established Mongol court.

His paintings were among the first after the colapse of the Sung dynasty and its academy of painting to show a new variety and interest derived from subjects and styles of ancient masters.

Chao Meng-fu is popularly remembered as a painter of horses in the manner of the T´ang dynasty (619-907) master Han Kan but he also painted other animal groups, landscapes, and bamboos. Within his subject matter there was a general avoidance of superficial beauty with deliberately simplified colour and compositions and a schematic, even childlike, rendering to the antique and enabling a studied emphasis upon an amazing variety of brushwork.

Chao Meng-fu´s wife, Kuan Tao-sheng and his son Chao Yung (born 1289) were both painters of note though of rather more limited interests.