Mengfu's 'Autumn Color On The Ch' Iao And Hua Mountains
Among the large quantity of Chinese paintings, Zhao Mengfu’s Autumn colors on the Ch’iao and Hua Mountains is one of the most significant masterpieces, regarded as an outstanding representative of the paintings in Yuan Dynasty and the whole works of its author. This painting is a hand scroll, ink and color on paper, and its size is 28.4x90.2 cm. In the painting, the author depicts the beautiful autumn scene of Ch’iao and Hua Mountains. Firstly, it is important to know about the painter of this masterpiece, Zhao Mengfu, who was a Song Dynasty imperial family member but later served the following Yuan Dynasty as an excellent official in Hanlin Acadamy. He is well versed in poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal cutting,
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He had abandoned the style of Southern Song Dynasty, which uses gorgeous colors and tenuous style of drawing and ignored the emphasis on the similarity of objects’ forms. Instead, he tried to follow the reliques of Tang Dyansty, Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasty, showing a natural and unrestrained beauty. Autumn colors on the Ch’iao and Huan Mountains is one of his representative work of dégagé drawing style. The artistic conception conveyed by this painting is quiet and indifferent scene of fall, leading audience goes into a peaceful and undefiled world which is out of mundaneness so that a sense of unadornment is represented as well.
Furthermore, one characteristic of this painting is the variously changing brushwork. It seems that during his process of painting, Zhao Mengfu used several different sizes brushes, paying maximum effort to restore the scene. He used the most thick brush to show the coarse mountains, middle one to draw the counters of trees with some details and most gracile one to delineate boats, bulrushes and other tiny, elaborate objects. The whole picture is providentially both flowing and exquisite; this is the exact reason why this painting is so charming: it shows the ingenuity of Zhao Mengfu and his …show more content…
The whole picture can be deconstructed and analyzed as three parts. The first part is the Hua Mountain, which appears in the right side of the painting and rises up all over the ground, and trees on its foot. The upright lines of those trees emphasize the dynamic sense of Hua Mountain, making it looks like more towering
He had abandoned the style of Southern Song Dynasty, which uses gorgeous colors and tenuous style of drawing and ignored the emphasis on the similarity of objects’ forms. Instead, he tried to follow the reliques of Tang Dyansty, Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasty, showing a natural and unrestrained beauty. Autumn colors on the Ch’iao and Huan Mountains is one of his representative work of dégagé drawing style. The artistic conception conveyed by this painting is quiet and indifferent scene of fall, leading audience goes into a peaceful and undefiled world which is out of mundaneness so that a sense of unadornment is represented as well.
Furthermore, one characteristic of this painting is the variously changing brushwork. It seems that during his process of painting, Zhao Mengfu used several different sizes brushes, paying maximum effort to restore the scene. He used the most thick brush to show the coarse mountains, middle one to draw the counters of trees with some details and most gracile one to delineate boats, bulrushes and other tiny, elaborate objects. The whole picture is providentially both flowing and exquisite; this is the exact reason why this painting is so charming: it shows the ingenuity of Zhao Mengfu and his …show more content…
The whole picture can be deconstructed and analyzed as three parts. The first part is the Hua Mountain, which appears in the right side of the painting and rises up all over the ground, and trees on its foot. The upright lines of those trees emphasize the dynamic sense of Hua Mountain, making it looks like more towering