Wen | Zhao Mengde
Qianlong was a famous "great poet", and this "big" was only limited to quantity, because his poems were too casual or even colloquial, and some were even difficult to understand, so the evaluation of his poems was generally not high in successive generations.
He began to learn to paint at the age of 18, following dozens of studios to learn painting styles, especially paintings of plants and figures. Through his "Imperial Chart of the Emperor", we can see the other side of art as an emperor. This painting was hidden in Qianlong's bookcase in the twenty-eighth year of Qianlong (1763) and has not yet entered people's sights until modern times.
This painting is mainly made in anticipation of the seasons, for example, when it comes to the Spring Festival, Qianlong always has to paint a few strokes to express the festive meaning of an atmosphere of welcoming spring. Qianlong's personality pursues perfection, so everything is more exquisite in court life As early as New Year's Day, seventeen years after Qianlong ascended the throne, he painted a "Song Dynasty Map" on a whim, painting "Ruyi, persimmons, lilies, and baizhi in bottles", and the harmonic sound was just "Pepsi Daji", after which Qianlong sincerely loved this painting, which may stem from his preference for jiqing and the pursuit of perfection everywhere.
This "Picture of the Dynasty of the Emperor" is a "sketch painting" with a color of the brush, which meticulously depicts the mottled bronze and the freshness of the fruit, but the drunken meaning is not "painting", and Qianlong's own handwriting inscription reveals the rich symbolic meaning of the objects in the painting. Two wooden roots, two chic seochos, and an upside-down antique first-army musical instrument, Zhou Huzheng, symbolize auspiciousness and cessation of war. The Huibu tribute fruit on the plate highlights Qianlong's achievements and feats. This may not be a masterpiece in a painting, but it exudes the complexity and depth of a generation of emperors.
Previously, he had written a poem on the year map: "Six hundred years to see the Mohua Garden, the year of the day and the day together with the feast Zhang", so these reflect the side of the emperor who also pursues a strong literary and artistic life.
For this kind of subject, Qianlong likes it very much, and almost every New Year's Festival. Qianlong once wrote the following inscription on the "Map of the Dynasty of the Emperor": "The Qianqing Palace Xi Nuan Pavilion was a few weeks ago, and the tiger was provided with wooden roots and auspicious grasses, and the emperor's hand planted also." For decades in the fast present calendar, Fu dare to move, suitable for returning to the Ministry of Gongguo to the side of the pan storage, natural years of The Ji language, when the picture is used, to repeat this frame and ordered in the Minzhong sentence. It can be seen that this is the first scene that Qianlong painted according to the actual decorations in the palace.
In addition, some of the details of the "Dynasty Map" are also very interesting, often with deep metaphors, and even the prosperity and transmission of the Aisin Kyora family's vision are compared and expressed through painting. For example, one of the wishes emphasized by Qianlong is to show that he has the intention of inheriting from his grandfather Kangxi, "The hand is simple and simple, and the heart is passed on to the spirit." Therefore, it expresses Qianlong's infinite nostalgia for Kangxi, and even he does not surpass Kangxi in everything he does, including when he abdicates, because he cannot exceed 60 years, which is disrespectful to his grandfather.
In addition, the "Dynasty Map" also has a kind of Ji Gong intention.
The Zhou Huxiu and Mugen Ruyi in the painting are both relics of the old emperor Kangxi, and the breeding of Baizhi expresses the prosperity of the Ying Dynasty. Most of the fruits including the fruit plate are tributes from all over the world when the New Year arrives, so there is a wealth of information in it. For example, in the inscription, it is written: "Suitable for returning to the tribute fruit of the Ministry to the side of the plate storage, natural years of the Ji language, because of the map."
Behind this painting is also an old incident of Kangxi Pingding Jungar. As we all know, Kangxi personally conquered Zungar three times in his lifetime, although he generally won the battle, but the northwest border has not been completely purged, so in the twentieth year of Qianlong, there was a rebellion in the Huibu, this time Qianlong sent a large number of elites, and finally completely lifted the problem of the northwest frontier that had plagued the Qing Dynasty for many years four years later.
In the Spring Festival of the twenty-fifth year of Qianlong, Yeerqi Mubu re-envoyed to Beijing and once again offered tribute to show his submission, qianlong was very happy, so he personally gave Yelqi Mubu Tribute Fruit, it is the "Three Fruits of Returning to the City", this small volume of Gongguo, which also became the beginning of the Qianlong Dynasty's vast Jigong image project.
It was also in this year that the 100-axis drawing of the "Dingyili Huibu Meritorious Portrait" was completed, and in the first month of the following year, Qianlong gave the envoys a banquet to the Huibu at the Ziguang Pavilion and ordered the "Purple Light Pavilion Gifting Banquet Map" to be drawn on this topic, and the next year, Qianlong ordered the court painters headed by Lang Shining to begin to draw the "Pingding Xicheng Battle Map" group paintings... "The Three Fruit Map of the Huicheng City" and the "Map of the Imperial Dynasty of the Decay Dynasty" were both created at the peak of the production of this Jigong image, of which the birth of the "Map of the Imperial Dynasty of the Emperor Wei Nian" was the most significant.
In the twenty-eighth year of Qianlong (1763), with the downward movement of a series of governance policies, the Hui xinjiang region was already under the firm rule of the Qing Dynasty. Time entered a period of peace that lasted for a hundred years, which was also a feat that belonged to Qianlong alone in both the Kangxi and Yongzheng dynasties. In the new spring of this year, when the Huibu Gongguo was delivered again, Qianlong was full of emotions, so he re-wrote and repeated the theme he had painted three years ago, a pomegranate, apple and papaya, this time he redesigned the picture, symbolizing the tribute fruit of the dynasty's merits, was placed on the side of the old things of the Holy Ancestor, which was by no means unintentional, Qianlong was using the obscure language of objects and images, and the self-esteem martial arts could be compared with the Holy Ancestor. "The Imperial Chart of the Emperor" is Qianlong's personal participation in the protracted post-war "Jigong Image Project", and is a Jigong map written by the emperor himself.
Therefore, most of Qianlong's paintings cannot be interpreted from the perspective of art alone, but more from his grand conception, he cares about the "Ten Perfect Old Man" and the dreams passed on by generations.