Spring has passed, but the chill is still cold, making people feel no spring. But the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu said: "The snow knows that spring is the solstice, and the cold plum is dotted with qiong branches." The English Romantic poet Shelley also said: "Winter is coming, will spring be far away?" "Although the winter is lonely and the grass worms are dormant, the spring breeze sneaks in, and the moisturizer is silent. Poets' senses may be different from ordinary people, and they are often able to capture messages that ordinary people have not noticed. No, a "poetry writing maniac" more than two hundred years ago also resonated with Du Fu and Shelley, and found spring in winter.
First, its people and their paintings
In the winter of the thirty-second year of Qianlong (1767), the chill in the city of Beijing was compelling, and Ha breathed a breath of coldness. The Qianlong Emperor, who had been avid for writing poetry all his life, suddenly had a whim, and his poetry was full of hair, and he dipped his ink and wrote "Twenty Poems of Shengchun" in the winter, writing about the spring in Beijing, "pregnant with everything, with a hundred ends, from the imperial court and Lu Yan up and down, the look of observation, xian zhou xing club to the place." The Qianlong Emperor was a careful man, from the imperial court to the city, from nature to personnel, the poems are all prepared. Moreover, these twenty "ShengChun Poems" are the poems of the Qianlong Emperor and the Yuan Dynasty poet Yuan Shu, and each poem uses the beginning of Yuan Shu's "Twenty Poems of ShengChun", "Where is the early spring?" Chunsheng... In" format.
However, Qianlong was still not happy enough, and xu Yang, a court painter, was instructed to paint a painting of "The Poetic Intention of the Spring in the Capital", accompanied by twenty poems written by himself. Xu Yang inscribed himself in the painting: "In the winter of the thirty-second year of Qianlong, twenty poems of the imperial system shengchun, ordered the young minister Xu Yanghui to paint the whole picture... The subject's qualifications were stupid, and he failed to draw and write in case, fortunately the instructions were detailed, respectfully copied, and the four months were read. "It can be seen that the painting took four months to make.
Xu Yang, year of birth and death unknown, a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Long in the stretch of jiangnan like water, the delicate word is engraved into Xu Yang's bones. In the sixteenth year of Qianlong (1751), Qianlong toured south to Suzhou, and Xu Yang entered the painting and was able to enshrine it in the court. Influenced by Ai Qimeng and He Qingtai, Xu Yang has profound realism skills and is also one of the Qing Dynasty court painters deeply influenced by Western painting. His representative works include "Qianlong Southern Tour Map", "Prosperous Breeding Map", and "The Poetic Intention of The Birth and Spring in Beijing" that we are going to talk about today.
Xu Yang is good at mastering grand scenes, and his representative works mostly start from the grand, but he is also a detail demon, painting without losing delicacy and realism, and has the momentum of "everything is in the painting".
"The Poetic Intention of The Spring of The Capital City" adopts a bird's-eye view composition, starting from the Zhengyang Gate of the capital, and the famous buildings such as the Hall of Prayer for the Year, the Forbidden City, the Jingshan, the Xiyuan, and the Qiongdao Island can be seen. The theme of this painting is "spring" and "poetry", and the poem is the spring theme, so Xu Yang fully combines the twenty "Sheng Chun Poems" made by the Qianlong Emperor when painting, and it is rare that the twenty "Sheng Chun Tu" are distributed in different positions in the painting, corresponding to the corresponding scenery and customs.
It is both spring and spring in the cold winter, the flowers, grasses, insects, and birds in the mountains and rivers have spring intentions, and personnel also have spring meanings, so the twenty "ShengChun Poems" made by the Qianlong Emperor can be roughly divided into two parts: nature and human affairs.
Qing Xu Yang's "Poetic Intentions of The Spring in Beijing" collection of the Palace Museum
Second, the mountains and rivers are full of grass and trees in spring
The first of Qianlong's twenty "Poems of ShengChun" is titled celestial signs, and the opening sentence is "Where is the early spring?" Chunsheng bucket handle". In ancient times, the Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianjie, and Tianquan of the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper were regarded as fighting bodies, which were known as "Kui" in ancient times; Yuheng, Kaiyang, and Yaoguang formed a bucket handle, and the ancient "Yu" was called "杓". There is also a sentence in the poem "refers to the East Wind of the Gong", the Gun is located in the northwest direction in the Bagua, according to the celestial sign, when the bucket body of the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper points to the Gong position, the bucket handle is just in the east, and the east wind is the spring wind. "Spring in the bucket handle" means that spring is coming. Qianlong is headed by celestial signs, which embodies his idea of "respecting the heavens and the ancestors", and only the celestial signs imply that spring is coming, and the following descriptions are logical.
The first poem of "Sheng Chun Poem" is located in the northeast of the painting, next to jingshan Mountain, where grass and trees are still rare, and there is a pavilion on the top of the mountain, and there are two small pavilions on each side
The Yanshan Mountains, farther away than Jingshan Mountain, are sometimes covered with snow, but "spring is born in the snow". Qianlong Ye wrote that at this time, the white snow has been "away from the flash" and "dripping melting", in other words, the white snow has begun to be unable to hold up, and everything is about to recover.
On the left of the painting is Qiongdao Island, and the iconic building of Qiongdao is the White Pagoda
Jingshan and Qiongdao are located in the north of the Forbidden City, and then go south to enter the city of Beijing, it is difficult for us to see Qianlongye's poems describing natural spring, only one, Qianlongye describes plum blossom pine cypress, plum blossoms welcome snow proudly, pine cypress is verdant and tall, is a rare spring color in winter, so Qianlongye also does not hesitate to write and ink: "Where is spring early?" Spring in the pot. Mei is still passed down by Gao Shi, loose from the ancient style".
3. Spring in the Forbidden City
The picture enters the Forbidden City, and QianlongYe's inscriptions are mostly based on royal ceremonies or himself. The first poem that can be seen in the Forbidden City, Qianlong Ye wrote: "Where is the birth of spring?" Chunsheng Shufu Zhong. Greeting the New Year should wax Shuo, Shi Hui and keep the family style. "Chunsheng Shufuzhong" should refer to the tradition that every year Qianlong Ye writes a blessing to welcome the New Year at the beginning of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar.
The poem is located next to the Chonghua Palace in the Forbidden City, and the gate on the right is the Shenwu Gate
When we zoom in on the scroll, we can also see that there are eunuchs waiting outside chonghua palace with red notes, which is the embodiment of the custom of the Qing emperor to write blessings:
In order to match Qianlong's poetry, Xu Yang omitted some of the buildings and highlighted the key points. Not far down from the Shenwu Gate in the painting is the Taihe Hall, where a grand ceremony is being held, and the poem next to it says, "Where is the spring in the morning?" Chunsheng Yuanhui. A year of admiration, all countries are in the same wind. "On the first day of the first lunar month of the Qing Dynasty, a ceremony will be held, and all the officials and relatives of the country will visit the emperor and congratulate the emperor. The figures of the Taihe Hall in the painting are moving, whether inside or outside the hall, the ministers are shoulder to shoulder, and the honor guard is dressed in red and colored, and the next faction is a festive and lively scene.
The place where the gift is held in the painting is the Taihe Hall
Don't look at the Taihe Hall at this time, but Qianlong himself is not in the Taihe Hall, this is not Qianlong deliberately releasing the doves of the ministers. According to the regulations, on the first day of the first lunar month, Qianlong would come to the changxin gate and the Cining gate and lead the hundred officials and relatives to perform three kneeling and nine prostrations to the empress. At this time, Qianlong was giving the empress dowager a salute at the Cining Palace next to the Taihe Hall, and the Cining Palace in the painting was also very lively at this time, and the person in the middle was the Qianlong Emperor.
In the painting is the Cining Palace, and the person wearing the dragon robe in the middle is Qianlong
In addition to the congratulatory gifts, the poems and paintings also describe many royal customs of the Qing Dynasty, such as the Ice Frolic, which was very popular in the Qing Dynasty, in the Zhonghai Sea of the Tailiu Pond in the Xiyuan Outside the Forbidden City. In the Spring Ice Play", Qianlong also called ice play a national custom in his own "Ice Frolic Endowment Sequence". The ice frolic in the painting also attracts pedestrians on the bridge to stop and watch.
The emperor of the Qing Dynasty regarded Bingxiao as a custom of reviewing royal martial arts and welcoming the New Year, and the "Old Wen kao under the Sun" contains: "In the winter moon, Chen Bingjiao, who practices labor and rewards, cultivates national customs by reading martial arts." "Ice play is not only a kind of entertainment and ornamental activity, the emperor will also discuss the merit of the reward, the poem "on the merit of the full range of rewards" shows that the ice play is indeed rewarded.
Ice frolic is known as the ancient Winter Olympics, but ice frolic is only a kind of annual custom of the Qing Dynasty
In addition to Bingxiao, the Qing Palace awarded the ministers every New Year's Pass, that is, gave the ministers something, and the painting has a scene of the gifts awarded inside the Xihua Gate of the Forbidden City. Qianlong Ye wrote: "Where is the early spring? Spring is in the middle of the award. The northern sheep is fat with frost, and the eastern deer is dry and windy. "It shows that the year was given sheep, deer and other meat. The palace doors in the painting are covered with statues of door gods, eunuchs distributing sheep and deer, and slaves carrying sheep, deer and other things outside one by one.
In the painting, there is a person carrying a sheep and a deer on his shoulder, and there are also two people carrying them together
In the lower right corner of the scroll, there is also a prayer hall quietly standing, the lower half of the prayer hall is hidden in the fog, and Qianlong Ye's poem is titled "He Chunsheng Spring Morning?" Chunsheng Prays in the Valley". The "Great Qing Huidian" contains: "In the first year of Shunzhi, every year on the first day of the first month, the god is sacrificed to the Great Enjoyment Hall." "The Great Hall of Enjoyment is the Hall of Prayer for the Year, which was renamed the Hall of Prayer in the sixteenth year of the Qianlong Dynasty, but the emperor's sacrifice to the Hall of Prayer is not necessarily on the upper Xin Day (the first Xin Day of the first month of each year), but can also be held on the second Xin Day and the Next Xin Day.
The Hall of Prayer for the Year, in the lower right corner, is Xu Yang's self-title
When Qianlongye's gaze crossed the Forbidden City to the outside of the city, the vegetable garden was also the place where Qianlongye thought that spring was breeding, "Where is the spring in the early spring?" Spring picks vegetables. Seven kinds of stacks of green, five spices iron teeth melt. The last two sentences are written about the customs in the Court of the Qing Dynasty, "Seven Kinds of Soup" refers to the use of seven kinds of vegetables as a soup on the seventh day of the first month, and "Five Spice Plates" refers to the mixing of five kinds of dishes. The "Record of Customs and Soils" says: "It is New Year's Day, Lichun with onions, garlic, leeks, indigo, artemisia spicy spicy, miscellaneous and edible, take the meaning of welcoming the new." ”
The vegetable garden is located on the left side of the West Garden, and the painting vaguely shows two people working in the field
Fourth, when the age is full of people
Although the Spring Festival customs in the Forbidden City are grand and considerable, if they are full of humanity, I am afraid that they will still have to go to the city. Half of the painting is devoted to depicting the flavor of the city, out of the noon gate, the streets and alleys are full of cars and horses, people are crowded, three religions and nine streams, both high-ranking officials and nobles, patrolling soldiers, and there are people who lead cars to sell pulp porters and hawkers, which are lively and lively.
There is a cloth order posted under the root of the city wall, and Qianlong Ye believes that it is "Spring Birth Cloth Order", according to the poem "Water drought plus moon relief, Lu Yan several scenery melting", this is a cloth order about the relief of disaster victims in the year of flood and drought. According to the "Records of the Qing Dynasty", in the spring of the thirty-third year of Qianlong, the Qianlong Emperor issued an edict to help Hubei, Jiangxi and other areas that had suffered from floods and droughts, as a sign of welcoming the new spring.
The people watching the Buring under the roots of the city walls
In Qianlongye's eyes, spring still exists in various folk customs, such as "Where is the early spring?" Chunsheng firecrackers", at the bottom of the poem, we can see two children in a family setting off firecrackers.
And "Where is the spring early?" Chunsheng Xianmu Zhong", which refers to the customs of posting couplets and peach wood when the people of Beijing are old, and some people will write words such as "Yu Lei" and "Shendi" on the peach wood.
The door of this house is posted with "Shendi" and "Yu Lei"
Of course, other blessings will also be written, for example, the left couplet in the painting below is written with "Civilization Sunshine, Holy Grace spring is mighty", and the right person's house is written as "Ju Zhi'an". for the word "blessed".
The man on the left is painting the painting on the door
The door of this family is posted with "receiving blessings" and "welcoming auspiciousness"
"Chunsheng Shou Nian Zhong" is written in the Beijing people's custom of keeping the age, at the bottom of the poem we can see a family full of children and grandchildren, people who are enjoying the joy of heaven, children walking all over the place, parents sitting in the high hall, and there are tables and incense sticks in the courtyard, which should be an ancestor worship ceremony.
The city of Beijing still has the custom of beating the wax drum when it is old, which is exactly "where is the spring early?" Spring birth wax drum", the wax drum is a kind of drum that people beat in ancient times on the wax day, the ancients believed that this beating of the wax drum can drive away the plague and bring good luck. In the painting, we can not only see people beating wax drums on the streets and alleys, but also adults and children in a family's courtyard are also beating wax drums, which is very lively.
The spring meaning in QianlongYe's eyes is probably these, but the twenty "Sheng Chun Poems" do not exhaust the spring meaning in Beijing, just like Xu Yang's paintings have endless details, and the spring meaning is actually hidden in these very interesting details.
At the end of the year, New Year goods are indispensable, and on both sides of the street in front of zhengyang gate, there are all kinds of shops and crowded with people who buy new year's gains. According to the signs hanging from the shops on both sides of the street, we learned that these shops sell "Jinhua ham", "pine flower skin eggs", "dried and fresh fruits", "Suzhou groceries", "Zhenjiang Hundred Flowers" and so on.
There are "Songjiang PeelEd Eggs", "Huiquan Three Hundred", "Zhenjiang Hundred Flowers", "Shaoxing Papaya" in the painting
Paintings include "Hangzhou Velvet", "Big Red Riding Hood Wei" and "Suzhou Miscellaneous Goods"
The paintings include "Jinhua Ham", "Songmen Light Turtle", "North-South Collection", "Dried and Fresh Fruits"
And there are also many people in the painting who are full of New Year goods:
Outside the Zhengyang Gate, in addition to the serious shops, the most are all kinds of small stall vendors, car sellers, among the vendors are selling books, clothes, chicken, duck and fish meat, chopsticks, milk tea, and fortune tellers, which can be described as everything.
There are paintings that sell shoes and coats
There are those selling clothes and bamboo baskets in the painting, and there are those selling milk tea in the back
In the painting, there are chicken sellers, bowls, and books
Street fortune tellers, outside hung with the words "good look at the atmosphere" and "choose the day to marry" and so on
People walking on Zhengyangmen Street are also full of postures, life is varied, there are horsemen, there are car drivers, there are camels, and there are people who greet each other:
Horse riders, chariots, camels
There are people who are fighting each other
A child is depicted riding on his father's neck
Wen Shijun said
All in all, the "Poetic Intention of the Capital City" is actually a picture of the customs of the capital in the first month of the year. What kind of spring is the spring in Qianlongye's eyes? It is the revival of all things, diving into the silent spring, so gen refers to the east wind, the cold plum blooms, and the snow melts; it is also the spring of the people's anthropation, the Haiyan River, so the imperial court ceremony, the folk celebration of the new spring. At the same time, the fireworks between the wells in the lanes also drove away the chill. Just like the spring in Xu Yang's paintings.
bibliography
Zuo Mulian: "Qing Dynasty Painter Xu Yang Kaolio", Beauty and Times, No. 1, 2015.
Wang Yan, "Where to Give Birth to Spring Early Xu Yang's Painting of the Poetic Beijing Map of Hongli Shengchun", Forbidden City, No. 1, 2019.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Jingsu)
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