Baby play diagram is a painting depicting children's play, also known as "play baby picture", which is a kind of Chinese object painting. Because children are the main objects of painting and the main purpose of expressing innocence, the pictures are rich and the forms are interesting.
China has a long tradition of painting babies, and in the Tang and Song dynasties, the techniques gradually matured, and the Song Dynasty was the golden age of baby drama, making it a very popular painting in Chinese painting. The Song Dynasty was the heyday of the development of baby drama, which not only diversified materials, but also superb depiction skills.
With the continuous maturity of the theme of baby drama, many representative painters emerged in the Song Dynasty, and Su Hanchen was an outstanding representative of them. His children are innocent, childish, lively and lovely, and play an exemplary role in expressing customs and children's spirituality. "Autumn Garden Baby Drama" can be called a representative of children's paintings of an era, and has a profound impact on the physical state, composition and color of the infant drama theme paintings in later generations.
Su Hanchen (1094–1172), a native of Fenjing (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), was a painter of the Northern Song Dynasty. Su Hanchen had been a teacher of painting for the Northern Song Dynasty Xuanhe Period, and was reinstated after the southern crossing, and Longxing first painted a Buddha statue and was appointed as a promise to believe in lang. Master Liu Zonggu, gong painting Taoist interpretation, characters exquisite. His heirloom works include "Autumn Garden Drama Baby Picture", "Wu Rui Tu", "Percussion Diagram", "Baby Drama Diagram" and so on.
Northern Song Dynasty Su Hanchen's "Autumn Garden Drama Baby Picture" collection of the National Palace Museum.
Shaft, silk, color painting Length: 197.5 cm, width: 108.7 cm
In "Autumn Garden Baby Drama", Su Hanchen depicts the two brothers and sisters playing the game of pushing jujube mills in the courtyard with delicate brushwork, and the children depicted are carefully depicted, both silk and dyeing, and the changes are extremely rich, drawing the pattern with long and rounded lines, and then carefully dyeing the pattern on the clothes, not only drawing the soft and meticulous texture of the material, but also giving the clothes a gorgeous texture. These subtle treatments make the baby's plump, soft and delicate appearance jump on the paper, which makes people feel pity, and the degree of realism can almost be described as lifelike.
In terms of composition, Su Hanchen pays great attention to it, and the whole picture is a typical triangular composition, the relationship between the background and the characters is orderly and coordinated, and the subject and the objects outside are handled very properly. The most important part of the picture is the treatment of children and round stools, which is particularly eye-catching. The round stool with toys echoes the composition of the two children, making the picture appear both light and stable. What makes the picture more spatial is that the daisy attracts people from outside the picture, and the two children are located in the eye of the picture, so that there is something in the lower left of the picture to balance the picture, and the upright and towering boulder supports the same picture.
In the courtyard of this painting, the two sisters and brothers gather around a small round stool and concentrate on playing the game of pushing the date mill. Not far away, on the round benches and on the grass, there are also delicate toys such as turntables, small pagodas, and cymbals. In the background part, the bamboo shoot-like Taihu stone stands tall, the shape is solid and straight, and it is surrounded by blooming hibiscus flowers and daisies, which not only dilutes the masculinity of the lake stone, but also fully points out the autumn season.
Because the dates played by the sisters and brothers in the painting were crops in northern China, they were not produced in Jiangnan at that time. Coupled with the depiction of the whole painting, it is extremely delicate and realistic, which is in line with the characteristics of the court painting at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty. According to this clue, it is speculated that the time of completion of this work should be during the Xuanhe Painting Academy of Emperor Huizong. There is an inscription on the upper left side of the scroll, but not all of the original painting.
In the Song Dynasty, when the circulation of goods became increasingly widespread, rural freighters were extremely popular with children as itinerant hawkers. The children were ecstatically surrounding the van, hoping to buy their beloved toys. They can speak the tao, walk the streets and alleys, and decorate people's daily lives with those needles and threads and flower paper candy people. They are dressed in strange clothes and have a lot of goods, and they can bring joy to the children everywhere they go. The innocent and romantic looks of the children were truly recorded by the painter, and the daily colorful and life scenes of the children in the Song Dynasty were unobstructed.
Group baby figure Su Hanchen
For the baby image drawn by Su Hanchen, there is also an evaluation in the history of painting, and Gu Bing, in the Ming Dynasty, recorded in his "Genealogy of Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties": "Hanchen made extreme work, wrote babies, brightly colored, and had a raw body, and was familiar with playing like a joker, which can be described as a god." It can be seen that in the infant image drawn by Su Hanchen, the shape is written with a brush, and the coloring is used to achieve the point of "body size like life".
"Acrobatic Drama Children's Picture", Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Tuan fan, silk color, length 20. 4 cm, width 20. 4 cm
In the picture, the acrobat is performing a stunt, singing words in his mouth, beating a drum in his hand, and the two children are unconsciously deeply attracted. The characters are portrayed in a real and natural way, showing the painter's meticulous observation and artistic expression.
"Baby Drama" Su Hanchen Silk color painting is now in the Tianjin Museum
The collection depicts two children playing with butterflies. The composition of the picture is balanced, the pen is beautiful, and it is very interesting. "Su Hanchen" is a rare real work of Su Hanchen in China, which is very precious.
"Cargo Lang Tu" silk color Horizontal 181.5cm length 267.3cm Collection of the Old Palace Museum in Taipei
No money, the old legend of Su Hanchen, the painting is very large, the color is exquisite
Buddha Play Baby Chart Axis 159.8×70.6 cm National Palace Museum, Taipei
In this picture, the children are playing "passing the family": one child kneels down to imitate the adult worship of the Buddha, one child carries the Buddha statue in his hand, another child holds a water bottle to fill the Buddha, and another child holds a flower basket and dresses up as a Buddhist believer, imitating the ritual of bathing the Buddha.
Hundred Sons of Spring Picture Page Su Hanchen
Hundred Sons of Spring Chart Page (Partial)
Northern Song Dynasty Su Hanchen "Children's Drama Picture Page"
In the picture, there are four children on a grassy field happily playing with the jump rope, two of them dancing on each end, a child in red pants in the middle is jumping over the rope surface, and another child next to the child on the right is beating a drum-like instrument with a stick.
Northern Song Dynasty Su Hanchen,"Diagram of a Puppet Boy", collection of the National Museum of Tokyo, Japan
"Puppet play", or puppet show, was also one of the favorite games of ancient children. Especially during the Song Dynasty, puppet shows were popular. Puppets, originally used for performances, were made into children's toys.
Su Hanchen's painting depicts three children playing a puppet game on the ground, one of whom wears a red head cloth and controls a puppet, and if you look closely, they are playing with "cane-headed puppets", and the set props also have the words "today's first game" written on them. The children sitting opposite him beat the drum to meet him, and behind him a child was half-crouched in front of him to watch them perform, as if they were fascinated by it.
Northern Song Dynasty Su Hanchen", "Winter Baby Drama" Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
The picture shows two children playing with cats in the garden. The boy's left hand pulls a beautiful peacock feather with a thin red rope, and the girl swings back and forth with a checkered pattern pennant in her right hand, teasing the kittens that follow them back and forth, enjoying the fun of "petting the cat".
Three children squatted on the ground, looking intently at a circular container, one of them with his hand covering his mouth, and the other behind him dared to show only half of his face, as if everyone was holding their breath as the crickets fought, and the nervous emotions were about to come out.
Part of "Changchun Hundred Zi Diagram"
In addition to teasing cats, fighting to promote weaving, that is, fighting crickets, was also an indispensable form of entertainment for ancient children. Fighting crickets is one of the fighting dramas that Chinese folk people use crickets to fight for fun, and it is also an ancient ornamental entertainment activity. For example, the ancient football "Keju". In his "Hundred Sons of Changchun", Su Hanchen once depicted a game scene of a group of children kicking a bow.
Northern Song Dynasty Su Hanchen", "Changchun Hundred Sons Map" (partial)
During the Song Dynasty, the prevalence of theoretical thought had a great impact on the education of ancient China, and also penetrated deeply into children's games, so qinqi calligraphy and painting were also the main themes in baby play. Su Hanchen also has a special depiction of children's piano, chess, calligraphy and painting activities in his "Hundred Sons of Changchun".
Su Hanchen's paintings with the theme of "baby play" not only reflect the exquisite painting skills of the ancients, but also provide valuable image materials for future generations to understand the daily life and games of ancient children, especially the true appearance of children.