Guangchuan huaba 廣川畫跋

Guangchuan huaba 廣川畫跋 "Notes on paintings from Broad River [Studio]" is a sister-work to Dong You's 董逌 (early 12th cent.) Guangchuan shuba 廣川書跋 and a collection of various critics of paintings through the ages.

In the six fascicles of his book, Dong comments on no fewer than 136 paintings from private collections and the imperial palace. His notes provide biographical details about the artists. They are strong in critical research and evaluation, demonstrating the quality of paintings in a reliable and systematic manner. Dong supports his arguments with quotations from older books on painting. While not attempting to rank paintings against each other, he maintains a non-biased approach to assessing artworks. Instead of focusing on the use of brush and ink, Dong discusses the content of the paintings and highlights factual errors in details. An analysis of painting techniques can only be found in a few landscape paintings.

The text is included in the series Siku quanshu 四庫全書, Wangshi shuhua yuan 王氏書畫苑, Shiwanjuanlou congshu 十萬卷樓叢書, Cangxiutang congshu 藏修堂叢書, Cuilangganguan congshu 翠瑯玕館叢書 and Shiyuan congshu 適園叢書.