Zhao Guangfu
Precise Song figure painter
Zhao Guangfu(赵光辅) was a professional painter active in the court painting academy during the early Northern Song dynasty. He was from Yaoyuan in Yaozhou (modern-day Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province). Originally a commoner during the Five Dynasties Southern Tang, he became a student at the Painting Academy early in the Northern Song. He had an easygoing personality and had no ambition for official positions. He served in the Painting Academy during the reigns of emperors Taizu to Zhenzong (960–1022). He specialized in painting Daoist and Buddhist figures, foreign horses and wild animals, as well as bamboo, trees, and flowers. His brushwork was sharp and precise, like 'swallow tails on a knife’s edge,' and his figure depictions were solid and substantial. His color choices were elegant and restrained, continuing the legacy of Tang dynasty master Wu Daozi. He created many murals in Xuchang’s Kaiyuan Temple and Longxing Temple, with the 'Five Hundred Arhats' being particularly famous. His representative work, 'The Barbarian King Paying Respect to the Buddha,' is now housed in the Cleveland Museum of Art in the U.S. Other notable works include 'Steed Painting,' 'Merit Chart,' and 'Foreign Horse Painting.' In 1987, a damaged stele titled 'Song Traveling Master Xiong Inscribes Zhao Guangfu’s Painted Wall' was discovered at Taixu Temple in Jingyang, Shaanxi, which recorded his painting activities in the Guanzhong area in detail. At the 2014 International Conference on Song Painting, it was suggested that his figure painting style had distinctive characteristics of the Chang’an region. In 2018, an international academic seminar re-examined the creation date of 'The Barbarian King Paying Respect to the Buddha,' suggesting it may have been completed after 1033. From an iconographic perspective, the study also looked at its age again and revealed elements of Western Xia influence in Buddhist art. In 2025, descendants of Pang Laichen found that the Zhao Guangfu painting 'Double Horses' donated to the Nanjing Museum could not be viewed; it had been previously authenticated as a forgery and handled accordingly. Meanwhile, a hanging scroll version of Zhao Guangfu’s 'Double Horses' with Pang Laichen’s collection seal appeared on the auction market in 2014.