Zhao Mengfu Memorial Hall

The Zhao Mengfu Former Residence Memorial Hall is located at Sun Yahe Pier, west of Yuehe Bridge on Suoqian Street, Huzhou, Zhejiang (south of Gantang Bridge). The exhibition hall covers an area of 4,500 square meters, with a building area of approximately 2,000 square meters. It is the largest ancient Song-style building complex combining houses and courtyards in Huzhou. "Wuxing is an elegant county, rich in talents since ancient times." Zhao Mengfu, a master of art, was born and returned here. At the former site of his residence on the banks of the Gantang Bridge, people recall the past and look to the present, pushing open the door of history and walking into the life of Zhao Mengfu. Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322), courtesy name Ziang, pseudonym Songxue, and other pseudonyms such as Oubo and Taoist of the Crystal Palace, faced the precarious situation of the Song Dynasty, the fall of the Song Dynasty, and the rise of the Yuan Dynasty. Although he felt lost and hesitant, he never forgot his ambition to serve the world and became an official in the Yuan court. He eventually became a first-rank official, was granted the title of Duke of Wei, and was posthumously named Wenmin. He was the eleventh-generation grandson of Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty. It was difficult for young Zhao to resist worldly affairs. He was gifted and worked hard in learning, excelling in arts and literature. In painting, he was proficient in figures, saddles and horses, flowers and birds, and landscapes. In calligraphy, he was excellent in seal script, official script, regular script, running script, and cursive script. In addition, he was good at poetry and prose, diligent in textual research, knowledgeable in Buddhism and Taoism, understood music, was skilled in appreciation, and was good at seal carving. He was the leader of the revival of arts and literature in the early Yuan Dynasty. At that time, he was praised as "surpassing the past five hundred years and traversing ten thousand miles, reviving the antiquity of the Two Wangs and creating a new era." Six hundred years later, looking closely at the development and future prospects of art history, it is enough to honor him as the "master of all generations." The rise and fall of dynasties throughout the ages are ultimately consigned to the flowing water of the east. What moves later generations is the life experience of floating and sinking within it. In the face of tremendous changes in the times and the mission of cultural reconstruction, Zhao Mengfu's choices and responsibilities included both the tenacious persistence of knowing that something cannot be done but still doing it, and the hesitant wandering of a seagull trying to break free from the net. In the long river of history, like the shadow of a seagull reflected in the waves, it always leaves endless sighs in people's retrospective glance….