"Thousands of Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was created by the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng (1096-1119) in the third year of Song Huizong's reign (1113). The length of the painting is 51.5 cm and the length of the painting is 1191.5 cm. It is one of the pinnacles of ancient Chinese landscape paintings. The painting is known as one of the "Top Ten Famous Paintings handed down from ancient times in my country".
This work takes the natural scenery and customs of Jiangnan water towns as its theme. It comprehensively and extensively reflects the social outlook, humanistic spirit and historical background during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty. It has extremely high artistic value and historical value.
"Green landscape painting" and "ink landscape painting" are two major landscape painting techniques that go hand in hand in the history of Chinese painting. They were formed in the Sui Dynasty and became popular in the Tang and Song dynasties. The Sui Dynasty painting master Zhan Ziqian (545 AD) - 618 years), he expressed the technique of green landscape painting extremely purely in his works such as "Books of Classics", "Spring Outing", "Characters and Horses in Chang'an" and other works, and is known as the "originator of green landscape painting".
When making green landscapes, the technique requires neatness and delicacy, and the coloring is based on two natural mineral pigments: azurite (also known as azurite) and azurite (also known as azurite or malachite). Mainly, the picture is bright, fresh and beautiful, and has a strong decorative effect.
As far as the history of painting is concerned, ink landscape paintings are mainly produced by literati, while green landscape paintings are dominated by the palace painting academy.
As a court painter during the Song Huizong period and also a student of Song Huizong, Wang Ximeng has been creating green mountains and green waters all his life. "Thousands of Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is his masterpiece and a masterpiece in the history of painting. Representative work.
In "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", Wang Ximeng used the composition techniques of flat, lofty and far-reaching, and used an extremely rigorous, serious and pious attitude to depict the mountains, rivers, villages, houses, temples and waterside pavilions in the Jiangnan water towns. Natural scenery such as pavilions, small bridges and flowing water are combined together. At the same time, people's activities such as spring outings, safari, and hunting are integrated into it, so that static scenery and dynamic scenery are integrated into one, vivid and lifelike, giving people a breathtaking beauty. Picture scroll of Jiangnan water town.
The reason why Wang Ximeng was able to create such exquisite and exquisite works is inseparable from the cultural orientation and artistic influence of Song Huizong.
Song Huizong (1082-1035) is a famous alternative emperor in the history of our country. He "loved art but not the country", and his artistic talent completely exceeded his political talent. After the Song Dynasty entered the political arena, the idea of ??"literary governance" became increasingly popular. In Song Huizong's view, anyone who had attainments in literature and art would be regarded as an elite by him. The imperial court set up a special court painting academy to recruit those who were good at writing, painting, and calligraphy. Literati who had achievements or potential in other fields were all enrolled in the painting academy, and the court paid them salaries, which could improve the social status of the literati at a time. This group of literati, in addition to composing lyrics, painting, and writing, did everything they could to flourish the culture and art of the Song Dynasty.
It was against this background that Wang Ximeng entered the Palace Painting Academy at the age of 15. Just like the well-educated teacher Huizong of the Song Dynasty, he often took time to go to the palace painting academy to teach painting and calligraphy to painters. When he saw that Wang Ximeng had a high talent for painting, he was overjoyed and took the initiative to ask Wang Ximeng as a private tutor. He gave him good guidance in terms of pen and ink, techniques, conception, etc.
After teaching for more than three years, Song Huizong saw that Wang Ximeng had achieved success, so he assigned him a task and decided to test his painting level.
Song Huizong signaled to Wang Ximeng: The mountains and rivers of the Song Dynasty are so beautiful and enchanting. Go ahead and create a work that shows the beauty of the rivers and mountains of the Song Dynasty. Remember to include the social background and the spirit of the times in your work.
During this period, Wang Ximeng had just celebrated his 18th birthday. After receiving the creative task, he knew that it was an arduous task and also knew Song Huizong’s good intentions. After careful consideration, he decided to go first When roaming in the south of the Yangtze River, it is very necessary to collect first-hand information. Faced with the creation of such an important theme, it is of course impossible to work behind closed doors.
After realizing this, Wang Ximeng first came to Lin'an (now Hangzhou), preparing to use this as a starting point to start traveling around the world and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Jiangnan water town.
The fundamental reason why Wang Ximeng chose to travel to the south of the Yangtze River is that the south of the Yangtze River is relatively peaceful. In the north, the Song and Jin Dynasties have been in confrontation for a long time. Due to the intrusion of the Jin people, large areas of land in the north have fallen and the situation is unstable. It is very dangerous to go north to collect information.
The rivers and mountains of the Song Dynasty stretched thousands of miles from north to south, with great strategic depth. Even though the homes in the north have been captured by the Jin people, the Song Dynasty also had large areas of rivers and mountains in the south of the Yangtze River. As a base, they can still fight the Jin people to the end and then regain the rivers and mountains.
In the end, Wang Ximeng realized Song Huizong’s good intentions and used art to arouse the patriotic power of the people. This was Song Huizong’s only wish after the end of his political career.
This time, the Song Dynasty was no longer the one with strong soldiers and horses founded by Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin. Because of the prevalence of "literary rule", the court often appeared weak politically and militarily, so Huizong of the Song Dynasty The leading literati could only pin their beautiful wishes of enriching the country and strengthening the army and regaining the country in the writings of literati, in order to stimulate the people's patriotic enthusiasm.