My "Qingming River Map"

In 1991, I went to Shanghai on a business trip to pass by the "Ancient Books Bookstore" on Fuzhou Road, and in the kitchen window I saw a high imitation of the "Qingming River Map" from the Forbidden City on the shelf. The so-called "high imitation" refers specifically to its special photocopies of the existing paintings in the Forbidden City. I hurried inside to ask if there was a stock supply and how much it cost. Only to see the salesman inside answered from between his teeth: "There are not many stocks, 500 yuan per piece." I really didn't have to worry about the arrogance of the salesman, so I had to leave sadly.

My monthly salary at that time was only more than two hundred yuan, and 500 yuan was equivalent to catching up with my two months' salary. However, my painting teacher in junior high school introduced the value of this "Qingming River Map". Now, it is absolutely impossible for us to have the original, and having this high imitation is the best choice. When I discussed the matter with my wife, its response was one-sided denial. Later, I couldn't stand my soft grinding and hard bubbles, so I was allowed to use my consumption reserves, and then borrowed more than a hundred yuan from my neighbors, and finally achieved my goal.

The next year I went from Chiwan to Guangzhou on a business trip, I saw someone at the entrance of the cultural park recruiting someone to transfer the same version, and actually asked for 1000, I thought to myself, this thing bought the right thing. And later I kept an eye on whether there was a reprint and didn't find it. Sometimes I stumble upon the street selling fake antiques, with the four or five-rate painters in the countryside, copying the "Qingming On the River Map" to make the old sale, unfolding the picture scroll, can't bear to read, ask the price, and actually put forward three digits.

"Qingming On the River Map" was created by Zhang Zeduan of the Northern Song Dynasty, and since its inception, there have been many facsimiles and forgeries, and people have rushed to buy them, causing many waves and making earthquakes. This volume, now collected by the Palace Museum, is the original work of Zhang Zeduan in that year, silk, lightly colored, 24.8 cm high and 528 cm long. At the end of the volume, there is an inscription written by The Jin Dynasty, which is the only reliable material for understanding Zhang Zeduan. According to this, we roughly know: Zhang Zeduan, zizheng dao, Dongwu (now Zhucheng, Shandong) people, was originally a scholar, once went to the Capital Division (northern Song Dynasty capital of Beijing) to study, and later learned painting, Special Good painting boat car house, Chengguo bridge, all have their own style. In addition to this volume, his works also include "Jindi pond controversy map" and so on. Because of his achievements in painting, he was absorbed into the Imperial Painting Academy of the Song Huizong Zhao Yao Era, and served as a Hanlin Emperor. "Qingming On the River" is likely to be his work during the painting academy period.

Qingming Festival, in our country is a festival dedicated to commemorating the ancestors, at the same time, the children and grandchildren also take advantage of this good spring to the suburbs to walk in the countryside. In the Northern Song Dynasty, citizens went out to play on both sides of the Beihe River, and Zhang Zeduan chose this theme to paint.

The picture can be divided into three segments (from right to left).

The first paragraph writes about the rural scenery of the suburbs. The sparse forest is sparse, the mist is misty, it is the warm and cold season when the pedestrians are sparse, rushing past to show the specific time and unique customs of the Qingming Festival, playing a role in the topic, and also preparing for a more magnificent scene after the future development.

The middle section focuses on the scenery on both sides of the Bian River and the bridges in the river. Boats in the river came one after another, coming and going in an orderly manner. Among them, there are official ships and private merchants who are really "connected back and forth, thousands of miles." "This busy water transport scene shows the importance of the Bian River to Beijing. Zhang Zeduan's paintings are precisely the realism of this history.

Across the Bian River, Zhang Zeduan painted a huge arch bridge, "its bridge has no piers, all of which are framed by giant wood and decorated with Dan lacquer, like a flying rainbow." Therefore, it is also called "Hongqiao". In the picture. There was a large boat passing through the hole under the bridge, and the boatmen were battling the rapids. This is the climax of the entire painting, highlighting the tension of water transport.

The latter section depicts city streets. The house shops are next to each other. Among them are tea houses, liquor stores, foot shops, butcher shops, temples, public offices... Everything is available in all walks of life. There are also Luo Jinbao monopolies, agarwood spice supply; medical clinics, cart repairs; and fortune telling stalls, barber factory sheds... Everything is available. At the front of some of the larger shops, there are also knotted "Colorful Building Happy Doors" to show off. Pedestrians on the street are bustling, rubbing shoulders and rushing back and forth. There were merchants who were bargaining; there were gentry who were idly watching the customs; there were officials who sat on horseback and followed by slaves; there were peddlers who carried goods on their shoulders, and they were struggling to run; there were everyone who hid in flower palanquins; there were monks with walking feet on their backs; there were foreign travelers who were asking for directions; there were children in Tuxiang who heard about books; there were rich children who drank heavily on high buildings; and there were crippled old people who begged at the city gate... Men and women, young and old, scholars, farmers, industrialists and merchants are all-encompassing. At that time, the means of transportation in the city were cars and palanquins, and the power of the palanquins was all carried by people, and the power of the cars was mainly divided into animal power (cattle, horses, camels) and manpower. The car can also be subdivided, called rickshaws, donkey carriages (and camel carts); the cars are also called "Taiping Cars", "Flat Head Cars", "String Cars" and "Special Cars for Family Members" according to performance and use. These caravans and coachmen, people pulling shoulders and lifting, looking forward and backward, are very laborious and hardworking.

The street market around Hongqiao depicted in this volume was not the most prosperous and lively neighborhood in Beijing at that time, but it was also enough to see the development of the commercial economy of Beijing and the luxury of the ruling class at that time. As the shiren Meng Yuanlao described in his "Tokyo Dream Record": "Looking up, the Qinglou Painting Pavilion, the embroidered bead curtain, the carved car gathered on the Sky Street, and the BMW raced on the Royal Road." Golden Cui dazzling, Luo Qi wafting incense, new voice skillful smile in the willow shade flower Qu, according to the tube tuning in the tea house liquor store. Eight parties scramble, all countries salty, set the treasures of the world, all return to the city, the delicious taste of the Huan District, all in the kitchen. Flowers are full of roads, he limits spring travel, Xiao Drum is noisy, and several night banquets..." Here, Meng Yuanyuan is standing on the position of the landlord and gentry, and what he describes is only the extravagant and hedonistic side of the feudal rulers, while Zhang Zeduan's "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty" can more comprehensively reflect the lives of the city residents at that time, prominently describing the people who lived in the same city well with two different lives in the same city well. As the predecessor once commented, "there is bitterness in the eyes." The boatmen, pennists, porters, porters, coachmen, caravans, farmers, sailors, and small traders, hairdressers, car repairmen, etc., in the paintings, are all busy and hardworking. The bureaucratic gentry, the servant merchants, and their dependents were either riding in sedans or reveling in revelry. Zhang Zeduan treated the former as the main character of the picture in his painting, which can more truly reflect the essence of the society at that time. Thus his works still have high historical value today, a thousand years later.

When Zhang Zeduan created this volume of paintings at that time, according to the research of posterity, it was in line with the record of the Beijing City district in the "Tokyo Dream Record". In other words, it is to absorb the scenery inside and outside the East Jiaozi Gate of the inner city of Beijing. The suburban part is boldly cut and omitted with reference to the scenery outside the East Water Gate, thus making the picture more concentrated and general. We can also infer that works like Zhang Zeduan depicting large scenes and wide perspectives of working people are rare in history. In the process of his creation, he must have repeatedly observed and experienced in the Area of the Bian River, and even had contact and exchanges with the people at the bottom to understand their sufferings, and these first-hand information became a powerful basis for his indoor creation.

"Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty" is one of the most precious and great works of art that exist in China today. Some people say that it can replace the video recorder and show the scenery of the Northern Song Dynasty more than a thousand years ago to modern people. In 2010, the China Pavilion of the Shanghai World Expo, even more exciting, was the use of modern electronic technology, the part of the "Qingming River Map" was animated according to the original drawing brushwork, projected onto the big screen, which is more realistic. Visitors can "travel" to the Northern Song Dynasty more than a thousand years ago.

After that, the "Qingming River Map" began his turbulent and displaced history. Among the feudal rulers of the past, although a few people were able to preserve and appreciate this priceless treasure out of their artistic preference. Most people, on the other hand, regard it as a strange commodity, and after taking advantage of it, once they have succeeded, they will not show people. Looking at the turbulent displacement process of the "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty", we can clearly see this ugly social phenomenon.

According to the inscriptions of the Yuan and Ming people Li Dongyang, this volume of the "Qingming Upper River Map" has an inscription by Emperor Huizong of song and a small seal of the Double Dragon (now lost), which can be seen that it was originally preserved in xuanhe "imperial palace". After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, this painting circulated in the north. At the end of the volume, there are inscriptions by the so-called "died at the age of Jin Zhu" Zhang Zhu, Zhang Gongyao, Wang Jian (next to "Shi" on the left), Zhang Shiji, and others, as evidence, but I don't know who definitely hid it. After entering the Yuan, it was incorporated into the Imperial Inner House. For a mounting worker of the "Inner House", he stole a facsimile out of the palace and sold it to a certain noble official, who was later sent to Zhenshou Zhending, and the person in charge of custody secretly sold it to Wulin Chen Yanlian, who for several years, because of the frustration of the officialdom and needed money, and heard that the noble official mentioned above was coming back, afraid of being affected, and wanted to sell it quietly, and the result was obtained by Yang Zhun. The inscription of Liu Han in xinyu was written by the Yang family, which dates from the Yuan to the noon of Zhengjia (1354 AD). There are also lan and wu seals, which are also stamped by people from the Jin and Yuan dynasties. But there is no way to determine if it is a collector. More than ten years later (1365), when It was time for Li Qi of Yunyang to inscription, the painting went to the home of the Zhou clan of Jingshan again. During the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, there was the seal of Li Xian, and in hongzhizhong, there was an inscription by Wu Kuan, among which the cloud "Great Qing Zhu Gong (Dali Temple Qing Zhu Wenzheng), which has been hidden for a long time, is now first exhibited." "It can be seen from this how difficult it is for people to see its true appearance. Hongzhi Xinhai (1491) Li Dongyang mentioned a long poem at the end of the volume, so it can be seen that the painting was still in the Zhu family at this time. But soon after, he changed hands to Xu Pu's house. On his deathbed, Xu instructed his grandson Xu Wenyi to give it to Li Dongyang, and In 1515, Li Dongyang wrote another long poem describing the incident. Later, it was returned to Chen Hu Lu Quan, and Jiajing Jiashen (1524) had the inscription of Lu Quan. According to Wen Jia, after Lu Quan's death, his son pawned it to the Gu family in Kunshan because he owed the public account, and later someone bought it from the Gu family for 1,200 taels of silver. Wen Jia's book (referring to the "Records of Calligraphy and Paintings of The Mountain Hall") was compiled into a book after he was ordered to copy the records he made when he confiscated Yan Song's family property, and the record is more reliable. The Kunshan Gu clan he said may be Gu Dingchen, but who was this person later? Why did it fall into Yan Song's hands? It doesn't make it clear. Li Rihua's "Diary of Wei Shui Xuan", Shen Defu's "Wan Li Ye Zhi Zhi" Zhan Jingfeng's "Dongtu Xuan lan compilation", Tian Yiyu's "Liu Qing Riza", and Qing Ren Gu Gong xie's "Summer Leisure Notes," etc., each has something to say, and there is no consensus. None of them saw it with their own eyes, but only hearsay, so they interpreted it into stories such as the legendary "Pillow Secret" for posterity, and even later some people scolded this volume of "Qingming On the River Map" as "special things and harmful to the people", which is really a great slander against Zhang Zeduan. Regardless of the number of twists and turns, the true handwriting of this painting fell into the hands of Yan Song, who was raided and entered the Ming Dynasty's inner palace, and later transferred to the hands of the eunuch Feng Bao. Is it a reward? No way. If it is a reward and has such a big face, he will not fail to write it himself. That could only be theft.

What is even more bizarre is that zhan Jingfeng's "Compilation of The Eastern Map Xuanlan" has a passage about the destruction of the picture scroll, to the effect that after this scroll entered the Ming Dynasty's inner government, the Jiajing Emperor did not like ancient books and paintings very much, and has always been put on the shelf. There was an official named Zhu Xizhong in the court, and if he wanted to get it, he conspired with the inner court and used money to buy it from the present. When it was time to prepare for delivery, a small eunuch knew that the item was worth a lot. He took the opportunity to quietly open the box and steal it, and when he was about to transport it out of the palace, he encountered someone coming, and the little eunuch hurriedly hid it in the stone crevice of the gutter. Just when it rained heavily for several days in a row, and then I went to pick it up in a few days, the surface of this scroll was completely eroded. This story is a bit outrageous, try to ask the little eunuch to do this kind of thing, at that time it was the crime of killing the head, the little eunuch dared to try the law with his own body? Besides, it can't say it itself, who knows? Today, the painting is well preserved and has no traces of water immersion.

From Feng Bao until the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, it was impossible to investigate who took over. When qianlong arrived, there were the marks of Lu Feiqi and Bi Yuan, and it is possible that they were first in the Lu family and then returned to the Bi family, and after Bi's death, they were confiscated and collected in the Qing Palace. The Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911, but the Republic of China at that time still had a preferential policy towards the imperial family. All its valuable treasures remain intact. However, the deposed emperor Puyi had attempts to restore himself. In order to accumulate wealth, stealing rare books and famous paintings is the most labor-saving and can hide people's eyes. At that time, his brother Pujie nominally entered the palace every day to accompany reading, and Puyi was taken out of the palace through Pujie in the name of reward. Pu Jie also asked people to take them to Tianjin Jingyuan in batches, and the puppet state of Manchukuo established Puyi to bring these valuable cultural relics to the Changchun Puppet Palace, after the surrender of Japan, Puyi was captured by the Soviet Red Army, and the cultural relics he stole could not be taken away, and the "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty" was discarded in the ashes of the fire, and soon, the People's Liberation Army liberated Changchun and captured this rare famous painting.

The volume of high imitation paintings that I have should be said to be the closest imitation version to Zhang Zeduan's original work. Later, the Ming Dynasty painter Qiu Ying also copied a version. In the first year of Qianlong, the Qing Dynasty organized 5 court painters to also produce a version, the most gorgeous. However, after absorbing the Western painting method to introduce perspective, some Western-style buildings appeared in the picture, which inevitably deviated from the style of the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, I still feel more partial to Zhang Zeduan's original work.

In 1990, I was in Hong Kong on a trip to Halong Bay, Vietnam, and I met a Korean middle school English teacher on the boat, who didn't speak Korean, he didn't understand Chinese, so we could understand each other's meaning through English. Later, they exchanged mailing addresses and kept in touch with each other via email and WeChat. The gentleman was hospitable and had a common language for all sorts of things. Later he and his wife came to my house twice, and I went to Korea once. It is both a foreign friendship and a year-old friendship. Until two or three years ago, I proposed that we still learn the habits of the Japanese, friends at a certain age to stop interacting, because, when they are older, their appearance becomes more and more obscene; their energy is slowly decreasing, and now it is the most appropriate time for us to stop interacting, and everyone leaves the most beautiful memories.

On the occasion of parting, I gave him two gifts, one was a lacquer-carved vase; the other was this "Qingming River Map". Who knew that he shopped too much in Shenzhen, the traveling car could not be put down, and at the same time did not have a deep understanding of ancient Chinese paintings, and I discussed with me whether it was good to choose one of the two gifts, and whether it was good to leave Chinese paintings in your home? I said, "Haha, be nice, I'm still a little reluctant!" ”

It is really still my fate with "Qingming on the River Map" that has not been broken, this is an off-topic statement.