Bathing Horses
3 min readPainter:Zhao Mengfu
Painting Year:the Yuan Dynasty
Material:silk scroll
Dimension:vertical length of 28.5 centimeters and horizontal length of 154 centimeters
collection Place:the Palace Museum in Beijing
Bathing Horses is painting in elaborate style made by Zhao Mengfu，a great painter of the Yuan Dynasty.
This artwork depicts 14 horses and nine grooms.These horses have varying colors，including black horse，white horse，brown horse，grey horse and spotted horse.They drink water，neigh，enjoy bathing，take rest and make other different postures.Nine grooms also have their features.A groom bathes horse in the water，a sroomrides horse in the water，a groom walks on the ground with horse，and a groom takes rest under the tree……
In terms of composition，this artwork is arranged in order so that grooms and horses echo with static and dynamic status.Horses are painted in plump，strong and robust style like as the horses in the paintings ofthe Tang Dynasty.Bright picture makes fresh contrast with clear river water and willows on the banks.This artwork is classical，refned and brilliant.
Do You Know？
Paintings of the Yuan Dynasty
Paintings of the Yuan Dynasty were not as professional and plentiful as those of the Song Dynasty，so the court painting faded away.But scholar painting ushered in unprecedented development.Scholar painting of landscape reached the top peak，represented by Six Masters of the Yuan Dynasty（including Zhao Mengfu and Gao Kegong）.Painting of fower and bird further developed based on painting of fower and bird in ink.Painting offgure declined on the whole，but painting of fgure among religious mural developed by leaps，such as Mural of Yongle Palace.
Art Master
Zhao Mengfu（1254-1322）
Zhao Mengfu was a native of Huzhou(in today’s Zhejiang). Zhao Mengfu was a leader of Painting Community of the Yuan Dynasty, who was also a famous calligrapher, painter and writer of the Yuan Dynasty. As the founder of new painting style in the Yuan Dynasty, he was good at painting of fgure, painting of landscape,
painting of saddled horse and painting of flower and bird in elaborate style and freehand style.
This black-and-white spotted horse seems fearful of deep water in the front. It raises its head and wants to withdraw. And this leisure brown horse lowers its head todrik.
Anecdote
Zhao Mengfu learned painting horse
Zhao Meng fu was concentrated on painting horse, who was absorbed. One day, when he painted in the room, his wife heard noise from the room. With curiosity, she looked inwards from the window. She found that Zhao Mengfu fell backwards with hands and legs in the air and jumped suddenly. The wife was frightened so that cold sweat few from her back. She entered into the room. When Zhao Mengfu saw her, he awkwardly explained that he would paint a horse rolling on the ground. But he knew nothing about the specifc posture so that he imitated such action. The wife burst into laughter.
This black horse neighs and features bold physique. This vivid horse lets everyone believe it is a good steed. Its four legs are immersed in the water, so the water is painted shallowly to show the quality of water.
The old man dressed in red stares forward and looks at the water.He comes late for the reason of possible senile inconvenience.
