After the scroll, what is the mystery hidden in the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival?

Introduction: Zhang Zeduan wants to show some social ills to Song Huizong through The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Unfortunately, Song Huizong only affirmed the painting skills of this painting, but was not interested in its ideological connotation, so he just signed the preface and gave it away. The Northern Song Dynasty is a dynasty after the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms in the history of China, and it is regarded as an era of "gloomy literature". In the history of literature, there were eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties and six masters in Song Dynasty. Song Ci, Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism, Shen Kuo's Meng Qian Bi Tan, Sima Guang's Zi Tong Zhi Jian and the establishment of Hanlin Painting and Calligraphy Institute have all made great progress in painting, and landscape painting, flower-and-bird painting and genre painting have all made great progress. Now many paintings depicting the customs of Bianjing City in the Northern Song Dynasty have also been handed down. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival handed down by Zhang Zeduan, a painter in Song Dynasty, is an extremely precious painting legend. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is the first part of the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. First of all, we need to know the author Zhang Zeduan and his creative background. It's short, but it's clear. Zhang Zeduan was a famous custom painter who was active in the Northern Song Dynasty. When he was young, he studied and traveled, then engaged in painting and worked in the Royal Academy of Painting. Zhang Zeduan was born in the folk, familiar with the daily life and mental state of citizens, deeply sympathetic to people's sufferings and sense of responsibility, and deeply observing and vividly describing all aspects of social life, so his paintings truly reflect various social realities and contradictions to a certain extent, and The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival was born under this special social background. Zhang Zeduan's Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival has a little potential political intention, that is, by describing the prosperity of the city, various social contradictions are skillfully arranged in the picture, hoping that Hui Zong can see a more comprehensive social reality. During the Xuanhe period of the Northern Song Dynasty, court painting reached its peak. The Hanlin Painting Academy established in the early Northern Song Dynasty also played a positive role in the prosperity of genre painting. Huizong Zhao Ji loves calligraphy and painting, and has high attainments in both the fields. He attached great importance to the construction of the Academy of Painting, selected a large number of outstanding painters to serve in the palace and gave them high treatment. During this period, Zhang Zeduan entered the Xuanhe Painting Academy hosted by Huizong and became the "imperial edict to be determined" in the painting academy. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the development of boundary painting was closely related to the preferences and admiration of the rulers at that time. "Jiehua Academy is the best, dedicated to new ideas." The boundary painting "Wu Mu" recorded in "Xuanhe Tujuan" ranks third, and the status of the boundary painter has also been significantly improved compared with the previous generation. Zhang Zeduan, for example, can be promoted to the position of "Hanlin waiting for imperial edict". Zhang Zeduan is good at boundary painting techniques, and his paintings of cars, boats, city bridges, houses and other buildings are well received. In addition, Zhang Zeduan is especially good at depicting the characters in the paintings, with rich lines, rich dynamics and great interest in life. It is worth noting that many years of study experience has increased his comprehensive quality in turning to painting. The second part introduces the related cultural information of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Up to now, Zhang Zeduan painted golden flowers and birds, and the known manuscripts of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival scattered at home and abroad have reached more than 30 volumes, either with the inscription "Zhang Zeduan" or "Chou Ying" or without money. They are all in silk, green, and the picture layout and plot setting are similar. Among the numerous riverside scenes at Qingming Festival, the most representative is the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan in the Northern Song Dynasty, which is now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. How to explain "Qingming" in the scroll of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan in Northern Song Dynasty? Does it mean "Tomb-Sweeping Day"? (1) is usually regarded as solar terms, so the picture depicts the customs and activities around He Zhi in early spring. (2) However, some people think that autumn scenery is also depicted in the picture scroll, so the view that Qingming refers to solar terms cannot be established. (3) In addition, some people think that it refers to the name of the neighborhood, and there are different opinions. (4) According to the Biography of Ban Gu in the Later Han Dynasty, "Gu Xing was born in Qingming." It probably means "the world is at peace" Having said that, do you have any bold speculations-is it possible for the author to use the "Qingming" in the Qingming period to imply the peaceful and prosperous times in the Zhao and Song Dynasties? As a court painter of Hanlin Painting Academy, they were all admitted. It is conceivable that their literary talent is also excellent. When he painted this huge masterpiece, there was no reason not to carefully scrutinize the name of the scroll. So the word "Qingming" is probably a pun. The painter used "Qingming" in "Qingming" to imply the prosperous life of Beijing citizens in the peaceful and prosperous times of Zhao and Song Dynasties. This creative intention of praising peace and whitewashing peace is also consistent with Zhang Zeduan's status as a court painter. With this in mind, let's take a closer look at the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Can you find some thought-provoking scenes? Judging from the structure of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, it can be roughly divided into three parts. The picture rises and falls in front of us from right to left. 1. One is a "quiet country": a quiet country where the sun first moves. Five Xiao Lv came carrying charcoal, which seems to have opened the curtain in a quiet atmosphere. Many trees and scattered farmhouses along the road are particularly quiet. In the bland atmosphere of "Quiet Country", a scene that shocked the soul suddenly appeared on the screen. A crazy and frightened horse suddenly ran in front of the intersection, and two young children playing by the roadside were scared out of their wits. On the other side of the road, there are four people inside and outside. Their eyes are wide open and absorbed, staring at everything that may happen in an instant. The pony, tied under the eaves, pricked up its ears, cocked its tail and pedaled its hooves wildly, becoming frightened. 2. The second is "busy diving": at the moment when the big ship full of goods is about to pass Hongqiao, it may be neglected for a while and the mast is not put down in time. The more anxious you are, the more difficult it is to calm down. At this time, the accident happened. Two big ships entering Hongqiao from Sheung Shui and launching at the same time approached quickly and could not be avoided. The situation is very dangerous. Some boatmen waved, some shouted at each other, and some were dealing with emergencies. At a critical juncture, everyone around us worked together to turn the tide and turn the crisis around. Show an atmosphere of sharing the same breath, common destiny and mutual help. The third and last part of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is the end of the picture scroll-Downtown, which depicts the scene of shops, people coming and going, and prosperous business in the streets and alleys of Beijing. The author shows the past folk customs with rich artistic language. Although the whole photo is almost all-inclusive, it focuses on the scenes where workers, boatmen, trackers and citizens are busy with their lives. At the end of the riverside scene on Qingming Festival, there is a street lying at the gate, and the bustling scene of people coming and going during the festival is very attractive. Cross the Hongqiao Juice River and turn out the map. Going forward, there are onlookers selling medicines, car repair workers and fortune tellers on the street ... Through the city gate, there are many shops in the city, and colorful buildings are becoming more and more luxurious. Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a part of the third part of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. After analyzing the above structural plots, we might as well speculate on the creative intention of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. 1. One possibility is that more than one third of the whole painting depicts the water transport of the Juice River, that is, the "upstream" part. In this painting, He Zhihe and his tributaries run through the whole picture. The author's intention is to let people appreciate the internal relationship between the traffic of He Zhihe and the prosperity of Tokyo through the description of the busy traffic scene of He Zhihe, which can also be said to be the core idea of the theme of the picture. It can be seen that the prosperity of Tokyo is inseparable from the development of wine transportation. In the painting "The Noisy City", the author takes the tall and majestic towers as the center, with streets and houses on both sides, and uses a camel team as the connection between the city and the outside world. Three or two camels are still in the city, and one camel is half exposed and walks out of the city gate, suggesting frequent business exchanges between Zhijin and the Great Wall in the north. The streets of the city are bustling with pedestrians and prosperous scenes. Although the picture implies a eulogy, it contains a strong civilian color and expresses a eulogy to the ordinary working people at the lower level. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival Part II, Another Possibility Mr. Hui Yu, director of the research office of the Palace Museum, thinks that Zhang Zeduan's Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is not only a simple description of people's customs and daily life, but also a mystery hidden under the appearance of commercial prosperity, with frightening hidden lines interwoven under the bright lines. At that time, the eight compartments of Bianjing City had 120 square meters, and the buildings were mostly brick-wood structures. The Northern Song Dynasty experienced more than 40 catastrophic fires, so fire fighting was the most concerned issue for the ruling and opposition parties at that time. At that time, the fire prevention measures in Bianjing were very strict, and each workshop was equipped with a fire eye building to observe the fire. There is an army called "fire diver" stationed downstairs, which is responsible for putting out the fire. The afterglow said that Zhang Zeduan painted the Wanghuo Building, but no one looked at it upstairs. Even more exaggerated, two rows of barracks downstairs were transformed into restaurants. The riverside map on Qingming Festival is an unguarded "watchtower", and what is more terrible than poor fire fighting is lax city defense. There is not a guard in the painting who goes up and down the city wall, nor is there any fortification on the earth wall, not even battlements for archery, not even imaginary battlements. It was supposed to be the location of the heavily guarded Yugoslav capital organization, but it was actually a shop, with the boss inspecting the goods and the accounting office keeping accounts. From the picture, the whole Bianjing city is immersed in a strong commercial atmosphere, and it is completely an unguarded capital. It truly reflects the decline of military strength and the growing indifference of prevention consciousness in the early Song Huizong Dynasty. There are many boats on the Riverside Map at Qingming Festival, many of which are private boats transporting grain. On the surface, this is a prosperous business scene, but it actually reflects an important mistake at that time: Song Huizong transported a large number of official ships carrying grain to Huashi Port, which caused the problem of grain transportation. Private boats took the opportunity to enter and gradually controlled the city's grain market, thereby manipulating food prices. To sum up briefly, the painter interweaves the contradiction between the bridge and the civil and military officials on the bridge into the visual center of the whole volume, and deeply reveals the social ills at that time by showing many scenes, such as disturbing the downtown area, the dangerous situation of the bridge, the officials fighting for the road, the military slackness, the lax city defense, the inadequate fire control, the intrusion of commerce and trade into the street, the party disaster and the wine disaster. There are more than one cases in which officials in the Northern Song Dynasty used paintings to express their feelings to the emperor. For example, the seventh year of Xining (A.D. 1074) was a year of great disaster in the Northern Song Dynasty. Xia Zheng, a judicial soldier in Gwangju, drew a map of refugees through craftsmen and asked Song Shenzong to stop Wang Anshi's political reform activities. Zhang Zeduan wanted to show Song Huizong some social ills through The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Unfortunately, Song Huizong only affirmed the painting skills of this painting, but was not interested in its ideological connotation, so he just signed the preface and gave it away. Song Huizong's Other Versions of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival References for Other Versions of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival: (1) Hui Yu, Trouble and Advice-Decoding Record of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, Beijing, Peking University Publishing House, 20 15. (2) Dai, Incomplete Theory of Riverside Map at Qingming Festival, edited by Liaoning Museum, Compilation of Research Documents on Riverside Map at Qingming Festival, Shenyang, Wanjuan Publishing Company, 2007.