Random talk on annual map

The Palace Museum Collects the Qing Dynasty Gaodong Imitation Money Selection Year Selection Axis.

Wu Changshuo, Palace Museum in Qing Dynasty, Photo courtesy of Qing Dynasty.

Central Axis of Li Shida's "Spring Festival in the Village" in the Ming Dynasty in the Palace Museum (partial)

The Palace Museum collects the axis of Confessions of a Clean Man by Chen Hongshou in the Ming Dynasty.

On New Year's Eve, China people are famous for their good wishes for the New Year. From ancient times to the present, people have arranged flowers according to the nature of heaven and earth, or started writing with auspicious words and pictures. Therefore, there are "Qingming Festival on New Year's Eve" and "Pictures on New Year's Eve", which are full of spring and vitality. Friends and relatives exchange gifts to express their joy and blessings for the New Year.

Seasonal paintings at this time, as well as snow scenes. Snow is the spirit of winter. People love snow and expect it. How can we describe the clean and bright world in our eyes or hearts without calligraphy and painting?

Today, two scholars specially invited by this magazine cut into the aesthetic culture of China at the time of resigning the old year and welcoming the new year from different perspectives, revealing to readers the civilized achievements created by generations of China people in the long history, as well as the elegant and profound connotation of Chinese excellent traditional culture.

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Ancient customs can be roughly divided into folk customs and court customs. Folk custom is a festival custom established by urban and rural people. Palace customs often come from the people, but they emphasize ostentation and extravagance and have distinct grades. The biggest festival in a year is the Spring Festival. The most striking thing for the government and the people is a large number of artistic activities, such as music, opera and art activities to welcome the New Year.

On the occasion of the new year, the most important artistic activity of the ancient ruling and opposition parties was painting for auspiciousness and happiness. This formed a unique theme of New Year pictures in Ming Dynasty-New Year pictures. "Sui Dynasty" is the first day of the first month of the year. There are roughly three kinds of paintings with the theme of the Sui Dynasty, namely, paintings depicting blessings, filial piety and expressing people's festive activities in the Sui Dynasty, involving flowers and birds, figures and landscapes. There are two ways to make his paintings, one is to draw scrolls with pen, ink and color, and the other is to draw them with strokes and engrave them on paper with a knife to print woodcut New Year pictures.

The pictures on New Year's Eve show beautiful things, which means good luck. This kind of painting pursues festive and lively colors, and its composition is full, which is suitable for the festive atmosphere of the New Year. In order to pray for a good weather and a healthy life in the new year, painters often use the homonym of objects to express their wishes, forming a relatively fixed modeling language and expression program, such as painting four persimmons and wishful thinking, which means "all the best"; Draw a magpie on the plum branch, which means "beaming"; Draw red dates, sheng, longan, boy, etc. I hope to "give birth to your son early", so as to show the homophonic culture in China very vividly, and wish the New Year through homophonic names and folk customs.

Folk New Year greetings are more life-oriented. For example, Li Shida, a Suzhou painter in the late Ming Dynasty, once wrote a long scroll "Qing Village at the Age of Years", which was written by a scholar in the second year of Wanli (1574). He was a literati painter who cared about society and people in the late Ming Dynasty. It was painted in Wanli 55 (16 18). In the past year, Jiangnan region has escaped all kinds of major natural disasters. The painter described the simple home life of rural people in Suzhou on the first day of the first month: children are setting off firecrackers, beating gongs and drums, elegant people are enjoying calligraphy and painting, and old people are drinking tea to catch up with the past and visiting friends in the New Year, which symbolizes the longing for the happy scene on earth.

In Qing Dynasty, Lang Shining, an Italian missionary painter who served the court with painting, was deeply influenced by this theme. He used the realistic characteristics of western paintings, combined with traditional line drawing and coloring to show the activities of characters during the New Year, such as Li Hong's Snow Scene Axis, which he painted together with other painters in the court, which is a family celebration picture showing traditional filial piety. The author describes the family atmosphere of Li Hong, the emperor of Qianlong, reunited with his children at the beginning of the new year. In the open porch of the harem courtyard, Li Hong sat in the highest chair, holding Ruyi in his hand. The older children stood quietly by, a little prince was offering birthday peaches, and the younger children were setting off firecrackers ... The whole picture showed a happy and peaceful festive atmosphere under the focus perspective. This picture was drawn in the third year of Qianlong (1738). In the just-concluded year, Li Hong successively reduced taxes in Taiwan, Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangxi, Hubei, Sichuan and Jiangxi, cast money in Jiangxi, built seawalls and dredged canals. At first, he enjoyed a high reputation in the world. The expression of Emperor Qianlong in the picture is full of confidence and slightly comfortable. Lang Shining painted many such themes, such as Happy Time of Emperor Qianlong. These works are all in large format, and they are all works on the order. At the beginning of each year, such paintings painted in previous years are hung in the palace for members of the royal family to enjoy, so as to achieve the goal of harmony and prosperity.

The representative painter who painted the theme of Qing Dynasty was Emperor Qianlong. There are six imperial rhymes in Chao Nian Tu. It can be seen that this is a new work prepared and drawn by Li Hong at the New Year's banquet held in Jia Xu (1754) for his cow, Empress Zhilu. Although it was painted by literati with elegant pen and ink, a festive atmosphere still emerged. The painter painted cypress branches, persimmons on a millstone, and a long, lying face, meaning "everything goes well", and also painted evergreen and pine cones. Plum blossoms in full bloom hint at the painting season and wish the 63-year-old Empress Dowager a long life of 10,000 years.

Lang Shining's Qing Dynasty disciple Zhang Weibang painted the picture of the Year of the Year, which also belongs to the theme of praying for the Year of the Year. The painter described the news of spring with meticulous brushwork and three-dimensional modeling of western paintings: peach blossoms and Chinese rose flowers were in full bloom in the vase imitating the Song Dynasty, and Swiss grasses such as Ganoderma lucidum and Evergreen were planted in the Jun porcelain flowerpot. Although the "anti-season" flowers are displayed, they also express their expectations for spring.

Qing Palace is the elegant play of literati's desk and timely flowers and fruits. Flowers that bloom in winter are often placed on the first day of the first month. Wu Changshuo, a representative of Shanghai painters in the late Qing Dynasty, led the theme of the Qing Dynasty to a more elegant and elegant style. For example, on the central axis of his masterpiece Qing Qing Qing, the bottles and jars on both sides of the strange stone are filled with plum blossoms and daffodils, and there are bluegrass pots on the table, as well as daffodil heads, persimmons, grapefruit and other flowers and fruits, which means peace and wealth. Elegant pen and ink have the rhythm of stone-like lines, and the brushwork is dignified and secure.

On the 29th and 30th of every year, pictures of door-keepers are posted on the door, and couplets are posted on both sides. Door gods include Bao Gong and Wen Tianxiang. And, Weichi Gong and Zhong Kui. The legend of Zhong Kui is the most popular. According to legend, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was seriously ill on his way out and dreamed that the imp had stolen its treasure. GREAT GHOST wore a broken hat, grabbed the little devil and ate it. GREAT GHOST claimed to be Zhong Kui, a scholar in Zhong Nanshan, and Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty refused to hire him because of his ugly appearance. Zhong Kui died in a rage and specialized in catching ghosts after his death. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty woke up from his dream and asked the painter Wu Daozi to exorcise the evil spirits of Zhong Kui's portrait. Zhong Kui has many images. For example, the Palace Museum has a pair of statues of Fudongmen posted in the Qing Palace. One is Hou Feng Zhong Kui, which depicts bees, monkeys and swords, and the other is Shoushan Zhong Kui. The clouds are painted with ribbons and peaks, symbolizing good luck, wealth and longevity. All of them were carefully drawn by professional painters in Qing Dynasty. The painting style is unpretentious, and Zhong Kui looks fearless and discerning.

Ancient paintings show infinite aesthetic charm in lively festivals, which makes people deeply appreciate the moral spirit of the sages and the essence of traditional culture. This is the significance of sublimation and celebration of traditional festivals.

(The author is a research librarian at the Palace Museum)

Layout: Cai Huawei

Author: research librarian of the Palace Museum