About the Qingming River Scene

Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is the only surviving masterpiece of the Northern Song Dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan, which is now in the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Zhang Zeduan, courtesy name Zhengdao, was born in Dongwu (now Zhucheng, Shandong). He studied in Bianjing in his early years, and later studied painting. During the reign of Song Huizong Zhao Ji (reigned 1101-1124), he worked at the Imperial Academy of Painting. He specializes in the techniques of using boundary pens and rulers to draw lines in Chinese paintings, which are used to express palaces, buildings, buildings and other themes. He is especially good at painting boats and carriages, shops, bridges, streets and city walls. His paintings are unique and unique. Most of Zhang Zeduan's paintings have been lost, and only the "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" volume has been preserved intact. The painting is 25 and a half centimeters high and 525 centimeters long. This painting depicts the prosperity of Bianjing during the Qingming Festival. It is a witness to the prosperity of Bianjing that year and a portrayal of the city's economic situation in the Northern Song Dynasty. Through this painting, we understand the urban appearance of the Northern Song Dynasty and the lives of people of all walks of life at that time. In short, "Along the River During Qingming Festival" has extremely high historical value.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, Bianjing was at its peak, with four rivers running through the city and four land routes extending throughout the city. It was the national water and land transportation center, and its commercial development ranked first in the country. At that time, the population reached more than 1 million. There are many lively markets in Bianjing City, with various shops and even night markets. During the New Year and festivals, the capital is even more lively. In order to express the prosperity of the capital, Zhang Zeduan chose the scene of Qingming, an important festival, to express59. "Along the River During Qingming Festival" focuses on depicting the land and water transportation and busy market scenes of the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.

The center of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is composed of a rainbow-shaped bridge and the street surface of Qiaotou Street. At first glance, it appears that the place is crowded and disorganized; upon closer inspection, it appears that these people are from different professions and are engaged in various activities. There are some vendors and many tourists on the west side of the bridge. There are knives, scissors, and groceries on the stalls. There are tea sellers and fortune tellers. Many tourists relied on the railings on the side of the bridge to point and watch the boats passing by in the river. On the sidewalk in the middle of the bridge, there is a bustling flow of people; there are people sitting in sedan chairs, riding horses, carrying burdens, driving donkeys to transport goods, and pushing wheelbarrows... The south side of the bridge is connected to the main street. On both sides of the street are teahouses, taverns, pawn shops and workshops. There are many small vendors with big umbrellas in the open spaces on both sides of the street. The street extends to the east and west, all the way to the quieter suburbs outside the city. However, there are still people on the street: some are carrying burdens, some are driving ox carts to deliver goods, some are driving donkeys to pull trucks, and some are stopping to watch the Bianhe River. The view.

There are many ships coming and going on the Bianhe River. It can be said that thousands of sails are racing and hundreds of boats are competing for the current. Some are anchored near the pier, and some are traveling in the river. Some large ships were overloaded, so the owners hired many trackers to pull the ships along. A large ship carrying cargo has sailed under the bridge and will soon pass through the bridge opening. At this time, the boatman on the big boat seemed very busy. Some stood on the top of the boat canopy and lowered the sail; some used poles on the side of the boat; some used long poles to hold up the roof of the bridge to allow the boat to pass safely along the current. This tense scene attracted the attention of tourists on the bridge and nearby boatmen, who stood aside and cheered. "Along the River During Qingming Festival" vividly depicts the busy and tense transportation scenes on the Bian River, adding to the life atmosphere of the painting.

Zhang Zeduan has a high degree of artistic generalization, which makes "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" reach a high artistic level. "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is unprecedented in its rich content, numerous characters, and grand scale. The paintings in "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" are dense and orderly, from the quiet suburbs to the lively urban streets, and are fascinating everywhere.

Before the Northern Song Dynasty, my country's figure paintings mainly focused on religion and aristocratic life. Although Zhang Zeduan worked at the Hanlin Academy of Painting and the works he created were called "academy paintings" or "academy paintings", he extended his painting brush to the lives of people from all walks of life and created paintings depicting urban and rural life. Social genre painting. "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" depicts a large number of various characters. Moreover, Zhang Zeduan depicts the movements and expressions of each character very realistically and vividly. This fully shows that Zhang Zeduan has accumulated a lot of life and is very skilled in creation.

The eternal masterpiece "Along the River During Qingming Festival"

The Liaoning Provincial Museum, located in the southeast corner of the Municipal Square, will be grandly opened in mid-November. By then, the national treasure "Along the River During Qingming Festival", which has "lived" in Shenyang for 6 years, will return to Shenyang to "visit relatives". In the nearly 900 years since its publication, "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" has experienced ups and downs, leaving many confusing mysteries to future generations.

On September 13, reporters inquired about the life experience of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" and the little-known experience -

The eternal masterpiece "Along the River During the Qingming Festival"

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival" "The author Zhang Zeduan, a painter of the Northern Song Dynasty, was born in Dongwu (now Zhucheng, Shandong). In his early years, he traveled to Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan) to study painting. During the Huizong period of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Zeduan worked at the Imperial Academy of Painting, specializing in painting palaces and palaces, and was especially good at painting boats, carriages, shops, bridges, streets, and city walls. Later, "I made a living by selling paintings after losing my position, and wrote "The West Lake Competition" and "Along the River During the Qingming Festival"."

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival" was collected by the Xuanhe Imperial Household in the Northern Song Dynasty. It is on silk, with light colors, 24.8 cm high and 528.7 cm long. The original work is now in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is the best illustration of works such as "Tokyo Menghualu", "Shengji Fu", "Biandu Fu" and other works. It has great historical value. It inherits and develops the long-lost ancient Chinese genre paintings. It also inherits the fine tradition of historical genre paintings of the early Northern Song Dynasty, and uses exquisite fine brushwork to record the natural scenery of the suburbs and both sides of the Bianhe River during the Qingming Festival in the capital Bianjing (now Kaifeng) in the late Northern Song Dynasty and the Huizong period, as well as the bustling scenes of buildings and people's livelihood in the city.

According to statistics from Saito Ken's "Zhuotang Wenhua Volume 8", "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" contains 1,643 people of various colors and 208 animals (only), which is more than the 1,191 in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" There are far more people, 975 people in "Dream of Red Mansions" and 787 people in "Water Margin". They can be called priceless national treasures. "Along the River During the Qingming Festival"

After "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" was passed down to later generations, it attracted the attention of future generations for its unique artistic value and historical value. The last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Aisin Gioro Puyi, was protected by the "preferential treatment conditions of the Qing Dynasty" for 11 years after his abdication. He still claimed to be a loner in the Forbidden City in Beijing. He also guarded and robbed himself, taking the opportunity to steal rare items that had been collected in the palace for many years. There are so many cultural relics, there are more than a thousand pieces. An excuse to reward the stolen national treasure

When Puyi was 12 years old, under the instigation of Zhang Xun, he returned to the throne of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. However, he abdicated again not long after, and was in the precarious situation of the "little court". At this moment, Puyi began to plan for the next step: studying abroad.

The first step for them to study abroad is to prepare funds. So, he transported the most valuable calligraphy, paintings and ancient books in the palace out of the palace and stored them in a house in the British Concession in Tianjin. The calligraphy, paintings and ancient books shipped out are all outstanding treasures, including more than 1,000 hand-scrolled calligraphy and paintings, more than 200 kinds of hanging scrolls and album pages, and about 200 kinds of Song Dynasty blackboard calligraphy. Among them, there is "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan of the Song Dynasty.

Despite the backing of "preferential treatment conditions for cleaning up the house", Puyi still did not dare to openly steal the palace treasures. In the name of rewarding his younger brother, he actually stole cultural relics. Around 1922, when the situation in Beijing was turbulent, his father bought a building on Puyi's behalf on No. 13 Road in the British Concession in Tianjin. Since 1922, they have secretly smuggled ancient books, calligraphy and paintings of famous people from past dynasties and other cultural relics collected in the palace out of the palace in batches in the name of rewards.

Puyi officially "rewarded" his brothers starting from 1922, the so-called "July 13th of the 14th year of Xuantong". Puyi took advantage of the opportunity of his two younger brothers to "enter the palace" to accompany Puyi to study every morning, and wrapped precious cultural relics in baggage, and his younger brothers transported them out of the Forbidden City every day after school. In the more than two months since the "rewards" began, sometimes the "rewards" were given day by day, such as from August 14 to 26, 1922, without a single day. After these palace cultural relics were accumulated into seventy or eighty large wooden boxes, they were transported to the buildings in the British Concession in Tianjin for storage. Carrying national treasures and surrendering to other countries

Until November 5, 1924, the then Beijing Garrison Commander-in-Chief Lu Zhonglin and Police Superintendent Zhang Bi suddenly broke into the Forbidden City with 20 short-range gunmen, drove away Puyi, and disbanded Puyi's plan to steal all the cultural relics in the palace was interrupted.

On November 5, 1924, Puyi returned to his father's "Prince Chun's Mansion"; on November 29, Puyi fled to the Japanese barracks, asked for "asylum", and openly moved to the Japanese embassy. The "small court" was restored under the protection of Japanese militarism. On February 23, 1925, under the protection of Japanese police, Puyi fled to Tianjin and settled in Zhang Biao's private residence "Zhang Yuan" in the Japanese concession. However, the financial resources at that time were far from being able to meet his huge expenses, so he decided to sell off the palace treasures.

The national treasure was in exile in the Puppet Imperial Palace

Through the conspiracy and planning of Japanese spy Kenji Doihara and the close cooperation of the Japanese army in Tianjin, Puyi was disguised as a Japanese soldier. On the first day of the tenth lunar month in 1931, he secretly crossed the Baihe River in a small steamboat. At Dagukou, boarded the Japanese merchant ship "Awaji Maru", dived to Yingkou, stayed at Tanggangzi in Anshan, and then headed to Lushunkou to enter the Japanese colony. In April 1932, Puyi entered the Changchun Puppet Imperial Palace and ascended the throne of the Puppet Manchukuo Emperor.

When Puyi fled from Tianjin, he had to pass through the area where the National Army was stationed, so he could only travel lightly. A large number of palace treasures are still stored in Tianjin.

Between 1932 and 1934, Lieutenant General Yasunao Yoshioka of the Japanese Kwantung Army Headquarters transported about 70 boxes of famous French paintings, rare books of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, jewelry and jade, etc. stored in Tianjin Jingyuan. Go to the Puppet Imperial Palace in Changchun and store the wooden boxes containing calligraphy and paintings in the east room downstairs of the library building in the east courtyard of the Puppet Imperial Palace, which is the "Little White Building"; store the treasury containing antiques and jewelry in the Jixi Building of the "Inner Court" living room. Captured with the escaped national treasure

In 1945, on the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the traitors in the puppet Manchukuo State were frightened by the news and went their separate ways. At that time, the Changchun Puppet Imperial Palace, which had been guarded by the Japanese Kwantung Army, was replaced by puppet Manchukuo army guards. Seeing that the situation was over, the puppet emperor Puyi was in panic all day long. What worried him most was that it was impossible to take away all the national treasures stored in the puppet imperial palace, but he could only selectively flee in large numbers with famous French calligraphy and paintings from the Jin, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties. In order to bring more national treasures with him, he threw away all the nanmu boxes and flowered damask furoshiki used to protect famous paintings and calligraphy, and stuffed these national treasures into large wooden boxes.

On August 10, 1945, Commander Oda Otsuzo of the Japanese Kwantung Army announced that the capital of the puppet Manchuria would be moved from Changchun to Tonghua. On August 13 of the same year, Puyi fled from Changchun to Dalizigou, Tonghua; on August 17, Puyi took a small military plane in an attempt to escape to Japan. As the plane passed through Shenyang, Puyi was captured by the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the Soviet Red Army. The famous French calligraphy and paintings and a batch of jewelry and jade that Pu Yi took with him were seized by the Chinese People's Liberation Army and turned over to the Northeast People's Bank for preservation. Experts reveal the secret of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival"

On July 7, 1949, the Northeast Museum (now the Liaoning Provincial Museum) was established and opened in Shenyang, becoming the first museum to open in New China. Most of the exhibits in the Northeast Museum are precious calligraphy, paintings, jewelry and jade ornaments that were transferred to the Northeast People's Bank and seized from Puyi by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. A unique eye for appreciating treasures

Mr. Yang Renkai, a people's connoisseur, discovered "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" among the many famous Dharma paintings and calligraphy that Pu Yi took away with him.

Historically, many "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" have been circulated in the name of Zhang Zeduan, and Mr. Yang Renkai has seen more than 10 of them. In the autumn of 1950, a batch of "Anonymous" calligraphy and paintings transferred from the Northeast People's Bank had not yet been sorted out, and the good and bad were mixed, and the jade was indistinguishable. At that time, when Mr. Yang Renkai was sorting out calligraphy and painting works in the temporary warehouse of the Northeast Museum, he discovered that there were three works with the same name as "Along the River During the Qingming Festival". At that time, Mr. Yang Renkai thought that these were the "Suzhou pictures" that were common in the past, and he never expected that miracles would occur in them.

However, what greatly surprised Mr. Yang Renkai was that the authentic "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan of the Song Dynasty, which had been buried in rumors for hundreds of years, would be revealed at this accidental time and place. An unexpected discovery! Mr. Yang Renkai was immediately "brightened and overjoyed to see the true face of Mount Lu. His excitement was indescribable." The original book solved a century-old mystery

Mr. Yang Renkai's excitement at that time was well-founded. : Because before this, experts and scholars had no idea what Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" looked like. They can only deduce that "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is similar to it from the many Suzhou pictures they often come into contact with, and believe that the original "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is roughly the original version of the Suzhou pictures. The true identity of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" has been a mystery for hundreds of years. No wonder Mr. Yang Renkai was "brightened and delighted" after seeing the authentic copy of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan of the Song Dynasty.

At this point, Mr. Yang Renkai truly understood that the author of the Suzhou picture had never seen the original painting of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" and only composed the picture based on historical written records.

For example, the Hongqiao in front of the East Water Gate in "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is a wooden structure, while the Suzhou picture is a stone building; the clothing of the characters, the shape of the houses, and the pavements are also very different from the Suzhou picture, especially the realistic depiction of boats is vivid and natural , has reached a state of perfection. Zhang Zeduan was able to depict the complex scenes of Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, in a more general and vivid way than Meng Yuanlao's "Tokyo Dreams". No wonder "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" has been popular and enduring throughout the ages. Qiu Yinglin distinguishes authenticity

Since three pieces of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" have been found to be authentic, the remaining two are naturally fakes. However, another miracle appeared in front of Mr. Yang Renkai: one of the two works turned out to be Qiu Ying's heavy-color meticulous "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", and it was signed. This work refers to the composition form of Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", but it depicts the realistic content of Suzhou social life. From then on, the mystery of the "Suzhou Pictures" was revealed: "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" painted by Suzhou people in the Ming Dynasty was originally from Qiu Ying's painting. Since the historical forgeries of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" are all based on the original copy of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" by Qiu Ying, Qiu Ying's original copy has become a condition for measuring the authenticity of "Along the River During the Qingming Festival".

After the opening of the Northeast Museum (now the Liaoning Provincial Museum) on July 7, 1949, Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" has been kept in Shenyang; in 1955, it was transferred to Shenyang by relevant state departments. Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing. 49 years later, "Along the River During Qingming Festival" came to Shen to "visit relatives", which is really exciting. We look forward to seeing "Along the River During Qingming Festival" back "home" as soon as possible