Riverside Scene of Qingming Festival in China Pavilion

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a genre painting in the Northern Song Dynasty, written by Zhang Zeduan. The architecture and people's livelihood in the suburbs of Bianjing, the capital of Hui Zong era, and on both sides of the Bianhe River in the city were recorded with exquisite meticulous brushwork, and the prosperous scene and natural scenery of Bianliang and Bianhe River in the Northern Song Dynasty during the Qingming period were described. This long scroll adopts the composition method of scattered perspective, bringing complicated scenery into a unified and changeable picture. There are more than 500 characters in the painting, with different clothes and expressions, interspersed with various activities and paying attention to drama. The composition is dense, paying attention to the change of rhythm and rhythm, and the brushwork is very clever.

The whole picture is divided into three sections.

The first paragraph, Bianjing Guochun. There are several huts, grass bridges, running water, old trees and boats hidden in the sparse forest fog. Two porters are driving five donkeys loaded with charcoal. They are going to town. 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 who come back from the suburbs of Beijing to visit 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. Dense population, grain ships gathered. Some people rest in the teahouse, some people go to tell fortune, and some people eat in restaurants. There is a "Wang's Paper Horse Shop" that sells grave-sweeping sacrifices. Ships in the river come and go, end to end, either pulled by trackers or rowed by boatmen, some full of goods, upstream, some docked at the dock and nervously unloaded. Across the Bianhe River is a large wooden arch bridge with exquisite structure and beautiful shape, hence the name Hongqiao. There is a big ship waiting to cross the bridge. The boatmen either propped up the bridge with bamboo poles, hooked the bridge with long bamboo poles, pulled the boat with hemp ropes, or were busy putting down the mast to pass the bridge arch smoothly. The people in the neighboring ship also pointed to something, as if shouting loudly. People on the bridge also leaned out and talked nervously, expecting the ship to pass smoothly.

In the back, busy downtown street. Centered on the tall tower, there are rows of houses on both sides. Teahouses, hotels, shoe stores, butcher shops, temples, public halls ... These shops specialize in silk, jewelry, spices, incense, paper horses, medical clinics, car repair, fortune telling and plastic surgery ... all walks of life have everything; The big stores also put up "Happy Doors with Coloured Buildings" in front of their doors and hung banners to attract business. Pedestrians in the market, shoulder to shoulder, are in an endless stream. Businessmen who do business, gentry who watch street scenes, officials who ride horses, peddlers, family members who sit in sedan chairs, monks who walk with baskets on their backs, foreign tourists who ask for directions, children in the streets who have heard of books, children of rich people who drink in restaurants, disabled elderly people who beg on the edge of cities ... men, women, children, intellectuals, farmers and businessmen, and people of various religions. Sedan chairs, camels, ox carts, rickshaws, peace carts, flatbeds … all kinds of things. In the five-meter-long picture scroll, * * * meters depicts more than 550 characters; Fifty or sixty cattle, horses, mules and donkeys, and more than twenty cars and sedan chairs; More than 20 large and small vessels; 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 is rich in scenes, but it is not trivial. It shows the painter's ability to grasp the macro scene and see the subtle painting realm in reality, which makes people admire his meticulous observation and vivid expression.