Zhao Mengfu (1254- 1322) was born in Song Xue and Xing Wu (now Huzhou, Zhejiang). He is a grandson and a direct descendant of Zhao, the king of Qin.
Zhao Mengfu, a great calligrapher, experienced a complicated and embarrassing life. As a adherent of the Southern Song Dynasty, he left many controversies in the history books. The fundamental reason for belittling Zhao Mengfu's book style is that he despises Zhao Mengfu. Zhao Mengfu is well-read, good at poetry and prose, familiar with economy, industrial calligraphy, fine painting, good at epigraphy, fluent in temperament and appreciation. In particular, calligraphy and painting achieved the highest achievements in the Yuan Dynasty, creating a new style of painting, which was called "the crown of Yuan people". From the age of five, Zhao Mengfu began to learn calligraphy, and he kept reading and writing until his death. It can be said that his love for calligraphy has reached a soft spot. He is good at seal script, official script, original script, calligraphy and cursive script, especially at regular script and running script. His calligraphy style is elegant, coherent and skillful, and he is known as "Zhao Ti" internationally. With Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan and Ou Yangxun, they are also called "four masters" of regular script. [1] There are many books handed down from generation to generation in Zhao Mengfu, and the representative works include Thousand-Character Works, Ode to Luoshen, Danba Monument, Poem of Return, Thirteen Postscripts of Lanting, Poem of Red Cliff, Tao Te Ching, and Tomb Inscription of Qiu E, etc. He is the author of Notes on Shangshu and Collected Works of Song Xuezhai (12).