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秋蘭

秋士愁落葉﹐秋蘭耐早霜﹔且傾三斗墨﹐洒筆作瀟湘｡

庚午夏軼生｡

Scholars in autumn mourn the fallen leaves;
Orchids in autumn endure early frost;
Then why not empty three pecks of ink,
And wet my brush to paint my Idyll?"
Summer of 1930 by Yisheng[tr. Irving Lo]

For many centuries, the orchid had been associated with the character and qualities embodied by Qu Yuan 屈原, the ultimate loyal minister and a great poet who lived around 300 bce, because he tended nine fields of orchids.

As a teenager Zhou studied in Japan, and after returning to China in 1900, he settled in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, near where he was born. He was noted in calligraphy for several styles of script and in painting for orchids and bamboo. A prominent critic called him the foremost artist in Zhejiang. He was also one of the founders of the Xi-ling seal society 西泠印社.