The Yangtze River, galloping endlessly, has bred five thousand years of Chinese civilization. Walking into the exhibition hall of the National Museum's "Jiangtian Wanli - Yangtze River Culture Exhibition", the sound of gushing water comes to the ears, and the story of the Yangtze River slowly unfolds.
In the exhibition hall, the blue-hued exhibition line is like a meandering river road, more than 300 sets of cultural relics, artworks and other materials of the Yangtze River cultural representative material evidence, in accordance with the "traversing the flow of eternity", "the inheritance of civilization extends", "the millennium cultural vein runs ancient and modern", "the golden waterway through Kyushu", "the great river Anlan Monument" Five units converge" the whole picture of the Yangtze River, continuing the historical context of the Chinese nation, painting a long scroll of the continuous development of the Yangtze River civilization.
Stone carved portrait courtesy of Guobo
Yugo
Exhibition decoding
More than 300 exhibits "River" were titled a number of heavy cultural relics for the first time
The Yangtze River is the largest river in China and the third largest river in the world, which provides rich nourishment for the endless life of Chinese civilization, and its ups and downs are closely related to the national economy and people's livelihood. When we mention the Yangtze River, we will think of the ancient singing of "the great river goes east", cultural sites such as Liangzhu and Sanxingdui, and the Three Gorges Project of "High Gorge Out of Ping Lake"...
Head-to-head
How to comprehensively display the long history of the Yangtze River, the grandeur of humanities, the beauty of ecology, and the greatness of engineering? Zhao Yong, curator of the exhibition and head of the Exhibition Department of the National Museum, introduced that this exhibition is another important attempt by the National Museum to refine and display the spiritual identity of China's excellent traditional culture after the Oracle Culture Exhibition, the "Dream of the Red Chamber" Cultural Exhibition, the Confucius Culture Exhibition, and the Grand Canal Cultural Exhibition. "The content of the exhibition spans a long period of time, and after careful consideration of the exhibition content, we chose 'River' as the theme of the exhibition, and comprehensively displayed the Yangtze River culture accumulated over thousands of years through the changes in the history, culture, natural landscape, art, transportation and other aspects of the river in different periods." Zhao Yong said that the exhibition is mainly based on the collection of the National Museum, with a long time span and rich content, and among the more than 300 sets of exhibits, the proportion of the figures is relatively large, and a number of heavy cultural relics such as "Yangtze River Map", "Yangtze River Wanli Map", "Detailed Map of Qianlong Sixteen Years of Southern Tour", "Southern Yunnan Salt Well Map" and so on are the first time to be illuminated.
《Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River》
"Qianlong Southern Tour of the Golden Mountain to Jiaoshan Mountain" (Volume 5) (Partial) Guobo Courtesy of the Map
The exhibition not only speaks with cultural relics, but also comprehensively shows the historical context of the continuous development of the Yangtze River civilization, but also tells the far-reaching impact of the Yangtze River on the political, economic and cultural development of the whole of China, especially the southern region, and the important achievements of the Protection of the Yangtze River such as the Three Gorges Project through works of art, models and pictures.
The heritage unearthed on both sides of the Yangtze River tells the journey of the ancestors' civilization
The Haohao Yangtze River is the cradle of Chinese civilization, from myths and legends, to the origin of civilization, to the economic center of gravity, the Yangtze River has never been absent. In the exhibition, from the Stone Tools of Guanyin Cave in Western Guizhou in the Paleolithic Era, to the Liangzhu Yubi in the Neolithic Era, to the bronze masks of Sanxingdui... The cultural heritage scattered on both sides of the Yangtze River tells people about the civilization journey of the ancestors who walked to glory.
Walking in the exhibition hall, if you don't pay attention, you will miss a small black stone sculpture. It was excavated from the liulinxi site in Zigui, Hubei Province, which belongs to the Neolithic Liulinxi culture and is one of the representative cultural relics of the origin of the Yangtze River civilization. According to expert interpretation, this figure is squatting on the round chassis, with both hands together, knee arches, elbows and knees, the top of the head is nearly flat, there is a double crown on the head, there is a carved groove on the side of the crown, there are two carved grooves behind the head, the waist is flat and round and thin, the face is stunned and open, and the look is vivid and vivid. This may be related to the primitive beliefs of the time, the worship of witchcraft.
A piece of brown-yellow serpentine jade in the exhibition hall was excavated from the ruins of Panlong City in the Shang Dynasty. According to experts, Panlong City is the site with the most yuge excavated in the early and middle Shang Dynasty, and it is also the Central Plains cultural site with the largest excavation of yuge. This piece of Jade Geyuan forward is a triangle, the bar and the inner junction have a circular wear, the inner is a long strip, the aid is near the bar there are three sets of short convex edges, two in each group, and two convex edges on each end of the bar, which was an important ceremonial instrument representing the status level in the Shang zhou period.
Two portrait brick rubbings of the Eastern Han Dynasty show the rich life of the ancestors in the Yangtze River Basin at that time. In one of the portrait bricks of harvesting and hunting, it depicts the scenes of fish swimming in the pond, flying geese in the air, ancestors shooting on their bows and working in the fields; another portrait brick of the salt field confirms the development of the salt industry in the Han Dynasty in Shudi, and vividly shows the specific conditions of salt production at that time. Experts say that these cultural relics show that after entering the Bronze Age, the civilization in the Yangtze River Basin accelerated the development process, and after a long period of Western Zhou, to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the Bashu Dian Cultural Circle, the Chu Cultural Circle and the Wuyue Cultural Circle were formed, and a Yangtze River civilization that integrated the cultures and pluralism of various regions in the Yangtze River Basin gradually took shape.
After that, the Qin and Han dynasties unified the world, the north and south have been closely linked since then, the Wei and Jin wars were chaotic, and the crown crossed south, and the south became one of the centers of gravity on China's political map. In the display case, two side bricks of inscriptions from the Western Jin Dynasty reveal the status of the Yangtze River Basin in the country at that time. The inscription on one side is: "Yongjia Zhongtian disaster but Jiangnan is Kangping", indicating that compared with the war-torn and turbulent Central Plains, the social living environment in the southern region is relatively stable; the other side of the indian text is "Yongjia Shijiuzhou Empty Wu Tu is prosperous and abundant", experts interpret that the wave of immigration caused by Yongjia's southward migration at that time and the deep changes in China's political, social, economic and cultural structure made the Yangtze River Basin come to the center of the historical stage for the first time.
Highlights of the exhibition
A number of "Yangtze River Map" debuts take the audience to "enjoy" the river scenery with the ancients
The Yangtze River meets hundreds of rivers, passes through Bashu, passes through Jingchu, travels through Ganwan, passes through Wuyue, flows in the east, and nourishes the life of the Chinese nation in a thousand turns. In the exhibition hall, a "Yangtze River Map" with a length of more than ten meters made its debut, like a time and space tunnel, taking the audience through time and space to "enjoy" a river view with the ancients.
Painted in the eleventh year of Qing Xianfeng (1861), "Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River" is a realistic sketch of the Yangtze River with mixed scenes, which not only depicts the scenery on both sides of the river from Minshan to the estuary of the Yangtze River, but also marks texts and quotes poems at each important place, integrating the author's personal imagination and emotions, and is also an externalized expression of the Chinese literati doctor's "lying in the landscape" to send love to the world. Experts revealed a detail, the title of this volume is signed as "imitation of the Giant Yangtze River Wanli Map", the poem inscribed at the beginning of the volume expresses the author's desire to enjoy the beautiful scenery with the deceased and the original intention of creation: "The great river goes east, see the waves, and the rolling waves are like snow." The Kingdom of Shu is full of flowers, all like dreams, and the wind and currents of the past have dissipated. By the Wanli Bridge, under the Jinguan City, the folded willows are frequently alarmed. Several nostalgia, how many haojie in the past. Wen Daoshu was quite a year old, and once came here to send a tour of Wu Ke. Breaking the waves and riding the wind, Yuan Suzhi, and see the cloud mountains and thousand stacks. The past is hurried, all return to the bottom of the pen, the scenery from the beginning, the drawing is relative, and the writing is infinite wind and moon. Dispatch a 100-word order. ”
A huge long scroll of Qing Dynasty silk "Yangtze River Map" is also particularly eye-catching. According to experts, this picture depicts the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River starting from Jiujiang in Jiangxi, to Anhui, to Nanjing, Jiangsu, and ending along the Yangtze River in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu. The depiction of the whole volume of landscapes is meticulous and the layout is dense and elegant, which is an important work reflecting the layout scale and water system of cities along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the middle and lower reaches of the Qing Dynasty.
One of the "treasures of the town hall" of the national museum, "Qianlong South Tour Map", the fifth volume of this exhibition is the "debut". Historical records record that due to the important position of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, during the reign of the Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors of the Qing Dynasty, they made six separate southern tours, the main purpose of which was to strengthen the Qing government's rule over the Jiangnan region. The fifth volume of this exhibition depicts Qianlong taking a boat from Jinshan to Jiaoshan, all the way to visit the beautiful scenery of the Yangtze River. In the picture scroll, what comes into view is the vast Yangtze River, and the audience can "swim together" with Qianlong and watch the waves rolling to the east, and the water and sky are colorful and endless.
Self-equipped with "picture talk" ancient picture scroll "illustration" of the Yangtze River
"Pouring galactic drums east, in the gallery of hundreds of miles." In the exhibition hall, many ancient paintings are equipped with "illustrations", and the audience can glance at the scenic spots, historical allusions, former residences of celebrities, geographical locations and other contents along the Yangtze River.
In the exhibition hall, there is also a paper "Yangtze River Map" drawn in the late Qing Dynasty, with a horizontal inscription "Yangtze River Map" at the beginning of the volume, and a paragraph under it: "From the Yellow Crane Tower to Wusong in the south, from Dabie Mountain to Chongming in the north, all the place names along the way are listed eleven by station." Looking carefully, the figure uses small black characters to indicate the locations such as "Yellow Crane Tower" and "Dabie Mountain", and also uses small kai red characters to mark the location miles one by one, such as "Hankou to Baihu Town on the ninety miles of the river" and so on. Experts interpret that this painting should be a Yangtze River defense picture scroll, drawn rigorously and carefully, throughout the whole volume, the painted mountains and rivers and trees have the charm of landscape painting, the distant mountains are stained with blue light color, the close-up scenery is full of moss dots, the mountains and stones are tight, the water surface is vast, and the pen is dense, which is a typical work of the combination of public opinion maps and landscape paintings in the Qing Dynasty.
The "Detailed Map of the Southern Tour of the Sixteenth Year of Qianlong" depicts the entire journey of the Qianlong Emperor's first southern tour through the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal in 1751 (the sixteenth year of Qianlong), and is written in two Hanman scripts, describing the various places through which the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal passes: the canal runs from the northeast of Hangzhou through Jiaxing Province to Suzhou Prefecture, and then northwest to Guazhoukou into the Yangtze River; from the river to the north to the Yangzhou Caohe River, through Gaoyou Prefecture and Baoying County, and north through Huai'an Province to the west and into Huaishui. The pictures and texts show the spectacular scenery of the country.
The ancients "hand-booked" witnessed the abundance of people in Jiangnan
In the exhibition hall, the "hand accounts" left by the ancients are the physical evidence of Jiangnan's abundant people. Among them, the Qing Dynasty's "Album of Famous Places in Jiangnan" is like a "travel account", recording the natural and cultural landscapes of Jiangnan. The plywood inscription on the first volume is "Map of the Location of the Jiangnan Palace", which depicts the twenty-four places of the Qianlong Palace during the southern tour; the splint inscription on the second to fifth books is "Jiangnan Scenic Spots", which mainly depicts the scenic spots of Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Suzhou and other places. Experts said that this atlas adopts traditional landscape painting techniques, pavilions and pavilions are presented at an aerial angle, the scale of the palace and the structure of the houses are finely depicted, with the meaning of boundary painting, the beauty of Jiangnan landscapes, and the beauty of the garden jumps on the paper. There are pictures on each page, in addition to pointing out the famous places drawn, some of them also record the geographical location, scenery characteristics, historical sites and the time of the southern tour.
"Jiangnan Famous Places Atlas" courtesy of the National Museum
The Qing Dynasty "Huai Salt Field Atlas" is the first time to meet the public, the album presents the Grand Scene of the Two Huai Salt Fields in the Qing Dynasty, confirming that the Two Huai Salt Works are the most important sea salt production areas in ancient China, bounded by the Huai River, divided into Huainan Salt Works and Huaibei Salt Works, known as "two Huai Salt Tax A world". There is also a Ming Dynasty "Longjiang Shipyard Chronicle", which systematically describes the development of ships in China and the management system of ancient shipyards. According to experts, the Ming Dynasty set up the Longjiang Shipyard in Nanjing, which was the largest, well-organized and skilled Royal Shipyard at that time, mainly building warships, building lake boats, fishing boats, sea boats, etc. The book also reflects the Yangtze River as China's thousand-mile road from the side, which had a profound impact on the economic and social development at that time.
"Huai Salt Field Atlas" Courtesy of the National Expo
Exhibitions and tips
● Location National Museum of China South 3, South 4 Exhibition Hall
● Extension 3 months from December 23, 2021
● Fares are free and need to be reserved in advance
Harvest fishing and hunting portrait tiles (rubbing)
Some of the pictures are provided by Guobo