Zhao Mengfu was a calligrapher of the Yuan Dynasty.
Zhao Mengfu (fǔ) (October 20, 1254 [1] - July 30, 1322), courtesy name Zi'ang, Han nationality, also known as Taoist Songxue, also known as Shuijinggong Taoist and Oubo. In his middle age, he was assigned to Meng Fu. A native of Wuxing, Zhejiang (now Huzhou, Zhejiang). A famous calligrapher, painter, and poet in the early Yuan Dynasty, he was the eleventh grandson of Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin and a direct descendant of Zhao Defang, King of Qin; his father, Zhao Yumin, served as the Minister of Household Affairs in the Southern Song Dynasty and as the pacifier of Lin'an Prefecture in western Zhejiang.
In the twenty-third year of the Yuan Dynasty (1286), Cheng Jufu, the imperial censor who traveled to Taiwan, "was ordered to search for the remains in the south of the Yangtze River" and introduced Zhao Mengfu to Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty. He admired his talents and appearance, and two years later he was appointed Bachelor of Jixianzhi. In the twenty-ninth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1292), he served as the general manager of Jinan Road. In the first year of Yuanzhen (1295), he returned to Beijing to compile "Shizu Shilu". In view of the many internal conflicts in the Yuan Dynasty, Zhao Mengfu took advantage of his illness to beg to return home. He was a scholar of the Hanlin Academy and a high official, and became famous all over the world. He died in the second year of Zhizhi (1322) at the age of sixty-nine. He was given the posthumous title Wenmin by Pingzhang Zhengshi and Wei Guogong of Zhongshu Province in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, so he was called "Zhao Wenmin". He is the author of "Song Xuezhai Collected Works" and so on.
Zhao Mengfu was erudite and talented. He was good at poetry and prose, understood economics, was good at calligraphy and painting, was good at epigraphy and stone, knew laws and regulations, and understood appreciation. In particular, he achieved the highest achievements in calligraphy and painting, creating a new style of painting in the Yuan Dynasty, and was known as the "Crown of the Yuan Dynasty". He is also good at seal script, official script, Zhen script, Xing script, and cursive script, and is especially famous for his regular script and running script. His calligraphy style is charming and elegant, with strict structure and mature writing skills. He created the "Zhao style" calligraphy and is known as the "four masters of regular script" together with Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan.