石渠寶笈初編(御書房),下冊,頁1144&*故宮書畫錄(卷五),第三冊,頁439&*故宮書畫圖錄,第九冊,頁139-140&* 趙左(活動於西元一六0三-一六二九年前後),江蘇華亭人,字文度,善畫山水。受業於宋旭。惜墨構思,不輕意落筆。畫雲山能自出新意,有似米非米之妙處。 畫江塢村居,憑樓遠眺。長橋橫鎖,雲山巍然。林木濕潤,層次井然。雜以煙嵐,有驟雨初晴的感覺。江邊煙霧,時現時隱。畫山最特出,先以淡墨遍皴,再用焦墨提破,因此光彩顯現而筆墨渾厚。 &* Chao Tso, whose style name was Wen-tu, was a native of Hua-t’ing in Kiangsu. He excelled at landscape painting, an art he learned from the painter Sung Hsü. He used ink sparingly, and only after great reflection, never dotting his brush thoughtlessly on paper. In painting clouds and mountains, he could convey the scenes of his own imagination, though incorporating the essential features of Mi Fu. In this painting of a dwelling in a river village, a vast distance extends beyond the pavilion. A long bridge guards the lofty mountains blanketed in clouds; the moist trees are painted in logical gradations. The mountain mists, now obscuring, now clearing, capture the feeling of rain just having ceased. The mountains, Chao Tso’s best feature, have been rendered first by modeling in pale washs, then have been built up to a shimmering solid mass of dry ink dots.