Why is The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival the pinnacle of China's ancient paintings?

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is regarded as the pinnacle of China's ancient genre painting, and it can be called an "encyclopedia" describing the society of the Northern Song Dynasty. It has been more than 9 years since its appearance, and it has played a great role in the development of China's ancient painting history. First of all, The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival has deeply influenced the conception and composition of the long scrolls of urban genre paintings in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and this influence is very lasting, so custom scrolls with similar themes have appeared repeatedly in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The theme of "Riverside at Qingming Festival" has also inspired some court painters, who have drawn "prosperous pictures" and "political genre paintings" to meet the royal demand for artistic appreciation. The real artistic influence of this picture on the painting world began in the early 195s. As soon as it was discovered, it attracted the attention of academic and artistic circles. At that time, China painting world was learning the creative mode of the Soviet Union and entering the exploration stage of the theory and practice of socialist realistic painting, trying to express the daily life of workers and peasants. As far back as the early 12th century, The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival confirmed that realistic painting art has a long history in ancient China. Since 195s, many students majoring in figure painting of Chinese painting have to copy this scroll (even a part of it) at the beginning stage in fine arts colleges, in order to solve the problem of line drawing training of figure painting, and landscape painters, even painters of various subjects and even painters of other paintings have also obtained artistic nutrition from it. No matter how to micro-social life, show details, or how to macro-control the scene, organizational structure, temper lines, and realize the integration of painting and science, it has given contemporary painters profound enlightenment. For more than half a century, most textbooks of primary and middle school students in various places have published some illustrations of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, which greatly expanded its educational scope. Up to now, there are about hundreds of millions of people in Chinese mainland and at least tens of millions of people overseas who know this painting, which is rarely matched in China's ancient and modern famous paintings.