Page 208 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

227 Crazy draft script, k'lums-u'ao-shu.
Hsu Wei ( i $2 i-i 593). poem.
Handicroll. Ink on paper. Taoist eccentrics and drunkards, each of whom created his own
style oik'uang ("crazy") ts'ao-shu, in which energy, oddity, and il-
legibility competed for the honours. A gentleman in Chao Meng-
fu's position might admire writing of this kind, but he would be
very unlikely to practise it himself.
CHAO MENG-FU Chao Meng-fu's popular fame rests not only on his calligraphy,
however, but also on his almost legendary skill in the art of paint-
ing horses, so much so that almost any good example with a re-
spectable claim to antiquity used to be attributed to him. As court
painter to the Mongols it would be surprising if his oeuvre had not
contained a number of pictures of the animal so dear to their
228 ChaoMeng-fu(l254-i322), The
hearts. But it is chiefly as a landscape painter that Chao Meng-fu
Autumn Colour! on the Ch 'mo and Huts
Mountains. Detail ofa handscroll dated must be remembered. He might, indeed, have said of himself,
equivalent to 1 295 . Ink and colour on
with Cezanne, "I am the primitive of the way I have discovered."
paper. Yuan Dynasty.