The late Song painter Zheng Sixiao's emotions on seeing plum flowers were ones of "shame that we are still embroiled in warfare when the plum blossoms herald a new spring in our ruined cities"; this was very far removed from an earlier writer's view of the plum flower as "unsullied by the dust of the mundane world, content between bamboo fence and thatched cottage."
宋末畫家鄭思肖的賞梅心情是「恥見干戈裡，荒城梅又春」。這與前人「不受塵埃半點侵，竹籬茅舍自甘心」的境界相去實遠。