Fortune telling in the Forbidden City

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, one of the top ten famous paintings handed down in China, is a genre painting in the Northern Song Dynasty, with a width of 24.8 cm and a length of 528.7 cm. It is colored in silk. This picture scroll is a masterpiece of Zhang Zeduan, a painter of the Northern Song Dynasty. It belongs to a national treasure and is now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. In the form of a long scroll, the work vividly records the face of urban life in China in the12nd century by using the composition method of scattered perspective.

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival records the architecture and people's livelihood in the suburbs of Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan) and on both sides of the Bianhe River in the city in the late Northern Song Dynasty and Hui Zong era with exquisite brushwork.

The picture actually depicts autumn scenery, and the word "Qingming" depicts Qingming, and the world is at peace, not Qingming Festival. Because Zhang Zeduan is a court painter, his paintings serve the court. There are two origins of the word "Qingming": First, Zhang Zeduan added the word "Qingming" when presenting his paintings to win the appreciation of the emperor; Second, Zhang Zeduan did not have the word "Qingming" when he presented the painting, so he called it "Riverside Map". Seeing the prosperity in the painting, the emperor liked to whitewash the world in the Song Dynasty, so he added the word "Qingming" to the name of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival.

For the prosperous scenery and natural scenery on both sides of the Bianliang River and Bianhe River in the Northern Song Dynasty, the works, in the form of long scrolls, use the composition method of scattered perspective to bring complicated scenery into a unified and changeable picture. There are 865,438+05 people in the painting, with different clothes and expressions, interspersed with various activities, paying attention to drama, dense composition, changing rhythm and rhythm, and delicate brushwork.

The whole picture is divided into three sections.

In the first paragraph, the spring scenery in Bianjing village: in the sparse forest mist, several huts, grass bridges, running water, old trees and boats, two porters are driving five donkeys carrying charcoal to the city. A willow forest, with faint green branches, makes people feel that although it is chilly in spring, it is already spring back to the earth. In the sedan chair on the road, a woman sat in it. The top of the sedan chair is decorated with willows and flowers, followed by riders and bearers, returning from a walk in the suburbs of Beijing to sweep the grave. The description of the environment and characters points out the specific time and customs of Tomb-Sweeping Day, which opens the curtain for the whole painting.

In the middle section, the busy Bianhe Wharf: Bianhe is the national water transportation hub and commercial traffic artery in the Northern Song Dynasty. As can be seen from the picture, the crowd is dense, food ships are gathering, some people are resting in the teahouse, some are reading fortune-telling, and some are eating in the restaurant. There is also the "Wang's Paper Horse Shop", which is a grave sweeper selling sacrifices. Ships in the river come and go, end to end, either pulled by trackers or paddled by boatmen. Some are full of goods, going upstream, and some are nervously berthing to unload. Across the Bianhe River is a large wooden arch bridge with exquisite structure and beautiful shape. Such as flying rainbow, hence the name Hongqiao. There is a big ship waiting to cross the bridge. The boatman is supported by bamboo poles; Hook the bridge with a long pole; Lead the boat with hemp rope; Several people are busy lowering the mast so that the ship can pass. People in the neighboring ship are also pointing, as if shouting something. Both inside and outside the ship are busy crossing the bridge for this ship. People on the bridge are also sweating over the tense ferry scene. This is the well-known Hongqiao pier, which is full of traffic and bustling, and is really the intersection of land and water transportation. In the second half, the bustling urban streets: centered on the tall towers, there are rows of houses on both sides, including teahouses, restaurants, foot shops, meat shops, temples, public halls and so on. Silk, jewelry, spices, incense, paper horses and so on all have specialized businesses. In addition, there are medical clinics, car repair, fortune telling, shaving and plastic surgery, and all walks of life have everything. Large-scale shops are also tied up with "colorful buildings and happy doors", and banners are hung to attract business, and pedestrians in the market are jostling with each other. There are businessmen who do business and people who look at street scenes. There are monks walking around with baskets on their backs, tourists asking for directions from other places, street children who have heard of books, children of rich people who drink heavily in restaurants, disabled elderly people begging on the edge of cities, men, women and children, scholars, farmers, workers and businessmen, and so on. Means of transportation: sedan chair, camel, ox cart, rickshaw, flat car and flatbed car. Vividly displayed in front of people. A total of more than five meters long picture scroll, a total of more than 550 people of all colors, including cattle, horses, mules, donkeys and other livestock, 50 or 60 horses, more than 20 cars and sedan chairs, and more than 20 ships. Houses, bridges, towers, etc. They also have their own characteristics, reflecting the characteristics of architecture in the Song Dynasty. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan is a realistic genre painting depicting a corner of Bianjing in the Northern Song Dynasty, which has high historical value and artistic level.