An accomplished poet, collector, painter, and calligrapher and a member of the Song royal family, Zhao Mengjian was compared by his contemporaries to the famous scholar-connoisseur Mi Fu (1052–1107). Like Mi's, Zhao's writing does not derive from a single source but combines the best of many earlier models: the natural charm of the fourth-century Jin writers, the brush method and character structure of the seventh-century Tang masters, and the free expression of the eleventh-century Northern Song calligraphers.This scroll, which transcribes Zhao's poems on plum and bamboo painting, is his best-known extant calligraphic work. Written for a young relative who was studying painting, the poems stress acute observation of nature and mastery of brush methods and conventions, as well as the importance of personal expression.
