polity yuan dynastyyuan dynasty

Autumn Colors on the Que and Hua Mountains

Handscroll by Zhao Mengfu (Yuan Dynasty, 1296 CE). Ink and colour on paper; National Palace Museum, Taipei. Depicts the landscape near Jinan, Shandong — Queshan (Magpie Mountain) and Huashan (Mount Hua) — painted as a gift for Zhao's friend Zhou Mi who had never visited the area. One of the most celebrated Chinese paintings, renowned for combining archaic Tang-style colour with Yuan literati brushwork, and for the integration of calligraphic inscription as part of the artwork's meaning.

Scholarly Significance

Zhao Mengfu's masterwork and the founding document of the Yuan literati landscape revival; demonstrates 'ancient simplicity' (guyi) aesthetic.

Notes

·Painted for Zhou Mi (1232–1298), a Song loyalist and book collector who had grown up near Jinan and nostalgically requested a depiction of the landscape.
·Zhao Mengfu's inscription explains the work's purpose and describes the two mountains: Huashan is a flat hill covered with trees; Queshan is a pointed peak.
·The painting employs archaic, deliberately clumsy-looking (ancient simplicity / 古意) forms — flat mountain shapes, stylized trees — rather than Song academy refinement.
·The Qianlong Emperor inscribed multiple colophons on the scroll, as it was one of his most treasured possessions.
·A key document in the transition from Song to Yuan painting aesthetics: consciously invoking Tang dynasty colour landscape while affirming the Yuan literati's rejection of Song court polish.