Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) created this artwork titled "Autumn Colours on the Qiao and Hua Mountains," a handscroll executed in ink and colours on paper measuring 28.4 × 93.2 cm and is now housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. Zhao Mengfu was a descendant of the Song imperial family and was a scholar, painter, poet, prose writer, calligrapher, and government official during the Yuan Dynasty. In 1286, he was selected to serve the Yuan Court after the Imperial Preceptor Cheng Jufu travelled to Jiangnan in search of former Song subjects who could serve the Mongol rulers. Zhao's decision to enter Yuan service was controversial, particularly among those who remained loyal to the fallen Song Dynasty and chose lives of withdrawal and reclusion instead. Despite this, Zhao went on to hold several official positions in the Yuan court and was eventually granted noble rank and a posthumous title.
Zhao Mengfu was also an accomplished calligrapher, and his interest in the relationship between painting and calligraphy became an important aspect of his artistic thought. He worked across a variety of subjects, including landscapes, figures, horses, bamboo and rocks, and birds and flowers. Rather than limiting himself to the styles of his own period, Zhao looked towards earlier artistic traditions and developed a revivalist approach that drew upon the art of the Tang and Song periods. His ideas concerning the relationship between painting and calligraphy and his revival of earlier styles had a considerable influence on later generations of Chinese artists.
Zhao's wife, Guan Daosheng, was herself an accomplished poet, painter, and calligrapher. Zhao's artistic practice incorporated calligraphic qualities into his painting, particularly through the expressive use of brushwork. In "Autumn Colours on the Qiao and Hua Mountains," this relationship between painting and calligraphy can be observed in the landscape itself as well as in the extensive inscriptions and seals that occupy parts of the scroll.
The handscroll presents an expansive landscape centred around two distinctive mountains, surrounded by winding water, marshes, trees, cottages, and fishermen. The pointed peak represents Huabuzhu Mountain, or Mount Hua, while the rounded peak represents Qiao Mountain. Zhao uses the blue-green technique of landscape painting throughout, with touches of ochre and red on the leaves suggesting the season of autumn. The relatively simple forms of the mountains and vegetation are complemented by varied brushwork, which has been associated with the earlier painter Dong Yuan.
Zhao Mengfu painted this scroll in 1295 for his close friend Zhou Mi (1232–1298). Zhou Mi was a prominent literati whose family originated from Jinan in Shandong Province, near the two mountains represented in this painting. However, Zhou himself had never visited his family's ancestral homeland. After the Yuan conquest, he refused to serve the new dynasty and instead lived as a recluse in the Hangzhou and Huzhou areas. Zhao, in contrast, had served in the Jinan region between 1292 and 1295 and therefore had personally encountered the landscape associated with Zhou's ancestral home. After returning back home, he painted this scroll for Zhou, allowing him to experience the landscape that he himself had never been able to visit and responding to his deep nostalgia for his family's homeland.
The painting therefore seems to me to be much more than simply a representation of a landscape. Zhao's revival of earlier artistic traditions, sometimes described through the concept of guyi, or "classicism," can be seen throughout the work in his engagement with older painting styles and his use of blue-and-green landscape painting traditions. At the same time, the painting has a deeply personal dimension because of the friendship between Zhao Mengfu and Zhou Mi. To me, this makes the work a very sincere expression of affection for a friend. Zhao Mengfu used his own experience of a place that Zhou Mi longed for to create something through which his friend could encounter his ancestral homeland.
This painting can be viewed in relation to Zhao Mengfu's complicated position as a former Song royal family descendant who chose to serve the Yuan court. Hung Sheng notes that Zhao's poetry expressed remorse about his service and sometimes conveyed the desire for the simpler life of his friends who lived in reclusion. In this sense, the peaceful and harmonious landscape of "Autumn Colours on the Qiao and Hua Mountains," may suggest an ideal of tranquillity and withdrawal, adding another personal dimension to an already deeply meaningful painting.
Zhao Mengfu’s Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains transcends a mere geographical rendering of Mount Hua and Mount Qiao; it functions as a profound act of empathy, nostalgia, and quiet political expression. Painted for his friend Zhou Mi—a Song loyalist living in self-imposed reclusion who could never visit his ancestral home in Jinan—the scroll serves as a surrogate landscape, bridging physical distance and exile through art.
By consciously reviving the archaizing "classicism" style and archaic blue-and-green palette of the Tang and early Song periods, Zhao invokes a sense of timeless elegance and historical continuity. Beneath the tranquil depictions of fishing, winding waters, and seasonal autumn foliage lies a subtle tension and that is Zhao’s own conflicted sentiment as a Song descendant serving the Yuan court, contrasted with Zhou Mi's firm reclusion. The peaceful, ordered landscape acts as a realm of spiritual refuge, offering both solace for Zhou's longing and a quiet longing for tranquility amidst political compromise.
