Fishermen-Hermits in Stream and Mountain

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

In this typical southern two shores divided by a river composition, two fishermen, each seated in the stern of his covered houseboat, troll their hooks in the swirling water, holding short rods fitted with spooling reels. Zhao Yong was a son of the southern calligrapher and statesman Zhao Mengfu, who, like his father was a scholar-official in the Mongol-Yuan government. As public servants of the Yuan state and administration, scholar-artists like the Zhaos delighted in paintings that pictured them in nature as fishermen amid vistas of Jiangnan, which they considered their home. The composition of two shores divided by a river was mostly famously associated with the Yuan painter Ni Zan.