(The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival).

The scroll The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, created by Zhang Zeduan in Song Dynasty, is a genre painting that reflects the social life of Bianjing, the capital of Northern Song Dynasty (now Kaifeng, Henan). It is 24.8 meters high and 528.7 centimeters long, and the ink is light. With panoramic composition and meticulous brushwork, the scroll carefully and truly records the bustling scene of Bianjing in Xuanhe period, showing the economic outlook, urban-rural exchanges and local conditions and customs at that time. The content structure of the painting can be roughly divided into three sections: the first section is the pastoral scenery in the suburbs of Beijing; The middle section is a busy scene of Bianhe River with arch bridge as the center and cross-strait traffic and trade; The second half is the prosperity of the market inside and outside the city gate. In the picture scroll, * * * painted more than 550 figures, more than 60 kinds of livestock, more than 20 wooden boats, pavilions, cars and sedan chairs with different shapes and styles, which is the largest genre painting in ancient China.

From an artistic point of view, The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is magnificent, with rigorous composition and meticulous brushwork. In the five-meter-long picture scroll, the patterns and actions of craftsmen, businessmen, scholars, doctors, physiognomists, monks, Taoist priests, officials, children and women, as well as the ingenious arrangement of plots among characters and the profound brushwork of trees, water, lines and boats fully reflect the author's comprehensive attainments in figures, landscapes and pavilions. It can be said that it is a collection of superb skills of various paintings in the Song Dynasty, in which it changes freely. What's more commendable is that the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is diverse, but it doesn't seem trivial and complicated. It shows the painter's ability to grasp the big scene macroscopically and see the subtle painting realm in reality, which makes people have to admire the author's meticulous observation ability and vivid life expression. In a word, Zhang Zeduan's The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a national treasure with high historical, artistic and cultural value.

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