Mist (From the Meander Series)

Zhang Hong (Arnold Chang), a Chinese American artist living and working in New York, has intentionally chosen to work in the style and format of the literati painters of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). His choice is evident in nearly all aspects of this painting: the use of ink, the control of the brush, the choice of landscape elements, and the overall composition and feel of the painting.

We may well ask how the literati tradition and the desire to work with the traditional materials of brush and ink can be meaningful today. The very choice to work in this style is revealing. At the least, Zhang Hong has consciously created a physical link between himself and China's artistic past, which may reflect a desire to be part of an unbroken artistic tradition that can be traced to antiquity, thus affirming his cultural identity. This is one of a number of paintings in the artist's Meander series, done during the mid- and late 1990s. The inscription reads: Painted by Juchuan Zhang Hong during the 9th lunar month of 1998.