How high is Song Huizong's artistic achievement?
He is the emperor written in the Water Margin.
Born in the royal family, he had a wide range of hobbies since childhood, such as pen and ink, epigraphy, cuju, collection, etc ... He didn't love politics, but he became an emperor. He was also captured by the Jin people and even lost his country. According to the tradition of China people, he has no face to set an example for others under the grave, but as an artist, he is the most successful generalist and genius in the history of imperial power in China for thousands of years.
There are several kinds of emperors, and he should be the kind of artist who can't hate and was born in the wrong place. For thousands of years, there was only one imperial artist in China.
Let you know what "exquisiteness" is from his calligraphy and painting.
Song Huizong was the most exquisite and qualified person in the Song Dynasty. He founded the first generation of China National Painting and Calligraphy Institute, became the first president himself, personally took charge of the business, and incorporated painting into the imperial examination.
China's earliest art test was his pioneering work. There are propositions in the exam, which are divided into six subjects: Buddhism and Taoism, figures, landscapes, birds and beasts, flowers and trees, and house wood, and ancient poems are used as examination questions. So that painting is no longer a reproduction of the scene, but a way to express the author's thoughts.
However, don't think that if you pass the exam, you will be finished if you enter the painting and calligraphy institute. You have to divide your official position according to your status, rank, continuous training and assessment. A painter drew a peacock, which was immediately criticized by Dean Zhao, because the peacock walked first with his left leg, not his right leg.
Dean Zhao also initiated the tradition of "showing things by body". The so-called "grid object", in today's words, is ingenuity. For example, draw a flower, which is colored at first glance, and then look carefully. Petals have veins, growth order and different stamens, and each flowering period is different. He asked the painter to face nature with awe, so under the leadership of Dean Zhao, flower-and-bird painting in Song Dynasty entered a golden age.
Dean Zhao also did a great thing. With more and more paintings and calligraphy collected in the palace, he re-mounted the old paintings and calligraphy collected, personally labeled them and compiled them into a book. This is the painting spectrum of Xuanhe, which records the biographies of 230 painters and 6390 works. Moreover, it was not all collected at that time! No wonder I have no time to manage the country.
Dean Zhao's original fine gold calligraphy is unparalleled in the world, and his calligraphy attainments are as famous as those of Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and Mi Fei. Not to mention the status of the emperor, his artistic attainments are as good as those of contemporary painters.
Dean Zhao is also an early painter who used the seal of appreciating calligraphy and painting in the history of painting in China. The dean identified them as true. If you like them, you should stamp a lot of court appreciation seals, collect them and leave traces of visiting here.
He is a genius, even a generalist, but he is not cut out to be an emperor. However, if there is no Dean Zhao in the history of China fine arts, I don't know how many years it will remain stagnant.