There are several very distinctive artistic features in "Along the River During the Qingming Festival":
This painting is written with both pen and brush, and the colors are light and elegant. It is different from ordinary boundary paintings, which is the so-called " Don’t have too many families.” The composition adopts a bird's-eye view panoramic method, which realistically and concisely depicts the typical area in the southeast corner of Bianjing at that time.
The author uses traditional hand scroll form and adopts "scattered perspective" to organize the picture. The picture is long but not redundant, complex but not chaotic, tight and compact, as if it were completed in one go.
The scenery captured in the painting ranges from silent fields, vast rivers, and towering city walls; to figures as small as people in boats and carriages, goods displayed on vendors, and words on market posters, all without losing any of their originality. . Various plots are interspersed in the picture, which are well organized and interesting at the same time.
The author of "Along the River During Qingming Festival" is Zhang Zeduan. Zhang Zeduan (date of birth and death unknown), also known as Zhengdao. Han nationality, from Langye Dongwu (now Zhucheng, Shandong). A famous painter in the Northern Song Dynasty.
His genre painting "Along the River During Qingming Festival" is one of the world's famous paintings and his representative work. He was eager to learn since he was a child. He traveled to Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan) to study in his early years, and later studied painting. During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, he worked at the Imperial Academy of Painting, specializing in painting palaces and palaces, and was especially good at painting boats, carriages, shops, bridges, streets, and city walls. Later, he "made a living by selling paintings after losing his position in the house, and wrote "West Lake Competition for Bid Pictures" and "Along the River During Qingming Festival".
He was an outstanding realist painter in the late Northern Song Dynasty. Most of his works have been lost. The surviving paintings "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" and "Jinmingchi Bid Picture" are ancient Chinese art treasures. "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. In addition, the Tianjin Art Museum has a small "West Lake Competition" signed by "Zhang Zeduan". It was a commissioned work and has been transferred to the Tianjin Museum.
"A Picture of Along the River During the Qingming Festival" still exists. It is the best illustration of works such as "Tokyo Menghua Lu", "Shengji Fu", "Biandu Fu" and other works. It has great historical value, not only It inherited and developed ancient Chinese genre paintings that had been lost for a long time, especially the fine tradition of historical genre paintings in the early Northern Song Dynasty.
Zhang Zeduan depicts the movements and expressions of each character very realistically and vividly. This fully shows that Zhang Zeduan has accumulated a lot of life and is very skilled in creation.
Extended information:
Introduction to "Along the River During the Qingming Festival":
1. Content
It is rich in content and depicts many things. In terms of expression technique, "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" uses the method of constantly moving the viewpoint, that is, the "scattered point perspective method" to capture the desired scene.
Everything from the vast wilderness, the vast river, the towering city walls, to the rivets on the boats, the small commodities on the vendors, and the words on the market posters are all harmoniously organized into a unified whole.
In the painting, there are officials, farmers, businessmen, doctors, divination, monks, Taoists, subordinate officials, women, children, pole masters, cable pullers and other figures, as well as livestock such as donkeys, cattle, camels and so on. There are scenes such as going to the market, buying and selling, hanging out, drinking, gathering, pushing boats, pulling carts, riding in sedan chairs, and riding horses.
The streets and alleys in the painting are lined with shops, hotels, teahouses, snack shops, etc., as well as city towers, river ports, bridges, cargo ships, government residences and thatched cottages.
2. Structure
The structure is rigorous, complex but not chaotic, long but not redundant, and the paragraphs are clear. What is valuable is that such rich and colorful content has a prominent main body, echoes from beginning to end, and the whole volume is integrated. Every character, scene, and detail in the painting is arranged in a reasonable manner, and the relationship between density, complexity, movement, stillness, gathering and dispersion, etc., is handled just right, so that it is complex but not complicated, and numerous but not chaotic.
It fully demonstrates the painter's profound insight into social life and his high ability to organize and control pictures. Judging from the content, this painting belongs to genre painting and also has the characteristics of genre painting.
3. Techniques
In terms of techniques, large-scale and meticulous techniques are combined. He is good at choosing things, scenes and plots that are both graphic, poetic and essential to express. Very meticulous observation of life, describing every character and prop. Everyone has their own identity, their own demeanor, and their own plot.
The structures of houses, bridges and other buildings are rigorous and meticulously painted. The carriages, horses, and boats are all present, but they are kept small without losing their overall appearance and their power. For example, the objects on the ship, the riveting methods, and even the knotting and fastening of ropes are all explained clearly, which is breathtaking.
Baidu Encyclopedia - "Along the River During Qingming Festival"