CHAO MENG-FU

born 1254, Wu-hsing, Chekiang province, China died 1322 Pinyin Zhao Mengfu, pseudonym Tzu-ang Chinese painter and calligrapher who, though occasionally condemned for having served in the foreign Mongol court (Yan dynasty, 12061368), has been honoured as an early master within the tradition of literati painters (wen-jen-hua) who sought personal expression rather than representation of nature. Chao Meng-fu, though he was a descendant of the imperial family of the Sung dynasty (9601279) 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 collapse 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 (618907) master Han Kan (q.v.), 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 of forms and scaleall seen as referring to the antique and displaying a great 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 range.