What is the historical value of Qingming Riverside Drawing?

The Qingming Riverside Scroll of Zhang Zeduan of the Northern Song Dynasty is an outstanding custom painting in the early 12th century in China, which depicts the prosperous scene and natural scenery on both sides of the Bianliang River and the suburbs of Bianliang (Kaifeng), the capital city of Emperor Huizong at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, in an exquisite brushstroke, and records in detail the commerce, handicrafts, folklore, architecture, transportation, details of life, and other things related to people's livelihood of the world's largest city, providing first-hand information for us to understand and study that era today, which has important historical documentary value.

The painting realistically depicts the spring scene inside and outside Bianjing City, reflecting the social, political, economic, cultural and artistic conditions of the time, especially the life and customs of the citizens from different perspectives.

First of all, the painting reflects the relatively relaxed political situation at that time. It is easy to see from the prosperous scene of Bianliang, the capital of Northern Song Dynasty, that the painting was made to glorify a peaceful and prosperous world. It is true that the unification of the Northern Song Dynasty broke the situation of fragmentation in the Five Dynasties, and formed the antagonistic situation between the landlord regime of the Northern Song Dynasty and the slaveholding regime of the Khitan (Liao) and the later Jin, as well as the Xixia regime that existed between the two. After the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, with the recovery and development of agricultural production, handicrafts (such as textile handicrafts and ceramics) were also highly developed; coupled with the improvement of waterway transportation and the development of the domestic market, the emergence of overseas trade, the density of the urban population and the enhancement of consumerism, which contributed to the formation of metropolises such as Bianliang. In the middle and early period of Emperor Huizong's reign, due to the relative stability of the Song Dynasty, he was obsessed with painting and seldom asked about the government, which consciously and unconsciously formed the political situation of "ruling by doing nothing". Although this situation has endless consequences, it has certain advantages in the present time, which makes the development of economy, culture and art in a relatively relaxed state. Although the work avoids the most prosperous Jinming Pond in Bianliang City, a glimpse of the whole picture, from the prosperous scene of Bianhe River near Hongqiao to the east of Shuimen Gate, has reflected the general social, political and economic conditions at that time.

Secondly, the prosperity of the market reflected the developed economy at that time.

The "Qingming Riverside Drawing" takes the traditional festival of Qingming Festival as the time background, takes the actual geographical location of both sides of Bianhe River from the east of Watergate to the vicinity of Hongqiao as the actual geographic location, and takes the three sections of the countryside, Hongqiao, and Chengguan as the plots, and takes the citizens "going out of the countryside" and "going up to the river" as the "catching the market", "going out to the countryside", "going to the river", "going to the market", "sweeping tombs" and other activities as the theme, a fine depiction of the social scene at that time. According to the custom, the Qingming Festival full vacation, people in addition to the graves, but also around the play, shopping, shopping, string of doors, chatting, gathering, or groups of three to five, or a family of joyful and festive, everywhere, a sea of people, singing and dancing, a school of vitality. Judging from the scale of its construction, the characters along the Bianhe River at that time must have been much more than those depicted in the painting. Due to the requirement of simple and simple, sparse and dense, the artist intentionally made appropriate treatment. At the same time, it provides a useful reference for the descendants to understand the economic situation, science and technology of the society at that time. Another example is the subtle depiction of buildings, ships, tools, costumes, and commodities, which are of great value to our technical understanding and reference today.

Once again, the Qingming Riverside Drawing, both in terms of its own artistic value and the all-encompassing content it depicts, represents the standard of that era and epitomizes it. The Song Dynasty, especially the Northern Song Dynasty, was a period of unprecedented development of material and spiritual culture. The development of urban economy and culture in the Song Dynasty opened up new creative fields for the art of painting at that time, and the richness of city life became a new subject for painters to depict. So, a good painting of the daily life of the residents of the city, the integration of figures, landscapes, flowers and birds in one of the city custom painting team came into being, in this team, there are famous painters in the Northern Song Dynasty, Yan Wengui, Gao Yuanheng, Wang Juzheng, Ye Ren and the famous painters in the Southern Song Dynasty, such as Xiaozhao, Liu Songnian, Su Hanchen, Li Song, Zhu Rui, and a large number of anonymous folk painters. Of course, one of the most influential and representative painters is Zhang Zeduan, whose work is Qingming Shanghe Tu. City custom paintings reflected the social outlook of the city at that time, adapted to the needs of the development of the commodity economy at that time, and catered to the aesthetic interests of the emerging civic class, and thus were welcomed by the masses, and were gradually recognized and appreciated by the rulers of the court. China's painting art to the Tang Dynasty, whether figures, landscapes, birds and flowers, have a fairly high level, but the performance of the subject matter of the figure painting mostly to religion, royalty, nobility, Shih Da Fu, ladies mainly, rarely reflecting the toiling masses and the scene of social activities. In the Song Dynasty, paintings were gradually oriented to society and life. Therefore, this period of marketplace custom painting and its classic work "Qingming Shanghe Tu" has its historical inevitability.