In the long history of history, the portraits of the emperors we see look like they were carved out of a mold, and they cannot be distinguished if they are not carefully identified. So what did the emperors of ancient China really look like? Today, let's take a look at the true face of the Qianling Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
In the Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art, there is a "Half-body Winter Portrait of the Qianlong Emperor" by court painter Lang Shining, which is one of the two casual portraits of Qianlong in his life.
The painting depicts the Qianlong Emperor, who is about forty years old, wearing a winter coat, a velvet hat, bright eyes, and a beard and long hair under his hooked nose. Since Lang Shining was a painter from Italy, while Western painters paid more attention to realism, the statue is considered to be the closest painting to the true appearance of the Qianlong Emperor.
The Qianlong Emperor was named Hongli and loved Xinjue Luo. Kangxi was born on August 13, 50th year in Prince Yong's palace, and was the fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor. Hongli was loved by his grandfather the Kangxi Emperor since he was a child, and was raised in the palace. In the first year of Yongzheng, the Yongzheng Emperor secretly established him as the crown prince, and in the eleventh year of Yongzheng, he was named the Prince of Heshuobao, and the thirteenth year of Yongzheng ascended the throne, with the year name Qianlong.
Qianlong Dynasty Service Chart Axis
When Hongli was crowned Prince Shuobao, he began to participate in the important affairs of the military state. After assuming the throne, he stood at the highest point of Chinese society at that time and began to display his "martial arts of cultural rule". The Qianlong Emperor's "rule of culture" was manifested in his political, economic and cultural contributions.
Politically, he corrected the shortcomings of his grandfather's leniency and strict strictness, implemented the policy of "leniency and strictness", rectified the rule of officials, determined various rules and regulations, gave preferential treatment to scholars, and pacified the attacked clan of the Yongzheng Dynasty. Economically rewarding land reclamation and water conservancy, the country showed a trend of prosperity. From the early to middle Qianlong period, it was the most dynamic period in the political life of the Qianlong Emperor and was highly praised by posterity. In the later period, he relied heavily on Minzhong and Hejun, especially favored corrupt officials and Huan, and the Qianlong Emperor himself was old, resulting in corrupt rule, widespread maladministration, and widespread corruption, which cast a shadow over the glorious life of the Qianlong Emperor.
Yao Wenhan "Hongli Jian Ancient Images" axis
The Qianlong Emperor was elegant and amorous, and wrote more than 42,000 poems in his life, almost matching the "All Tang Poems". He also attached importance to the collection and sorting of cultural relics and classics, and ordered the collection of the inner province to be compiled into "Shiqu Baoji" and "Western Qing Ancient Book". The Qianlong Emperor's most outstanding cultural achievement was the nationwide collection of books and the compilation of the giant Siku Quanshu. However, contrary to this, he launched a literary prison and burned many important cultural texts in Chinese history, eclipsing his "cultural rule".
"Hongli Costume Music" axis
The Qianlong Emperor also visited Jiangnan six times, Wutai and Dian Konglin dozens of times, and hosted banquets at the summer villa for ethnic minority leaders in the northwest frontier, and these measures played an important role in developing the economy, consolidating rule, and stabilizing the frontier. However, the Qianlong Emperor's perspective was still limited to China itself, and he did not have enough understanding of the scientific culture of European countries that were already flourishing at the same time.
"The Great Reading of the Qianlong Emperor"
The Qianlong Emperor's "martial arts" were mainly wars against the frontiers, and although there were victories and defeats, righteousness and unrighteousness, he prided himself on "ten perfect martial arts".
After sixty years of reign, the Qianlong Emperor ruled for another three years as Emperor Taishang, although he took the throne with his son Yan Yan. He was not only the longest-lived emperor of the Chinese dynasties, but also the longest in power. Because Qianlong lived to be nearly ninety years old, he often called himself the son of ancient heaven in his later years. The picture below is a portrait of Qianlong stamped with the seal of the Son of Heaven, now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
On the third day of the first lunar month of the fourth year of Jiaqing, the Qianlong Emperor died in the Yangxin Hall at the age of eighty-nine. Died Tianlong Yun to Cheng Xianjue Tian Yuan Li Ji Shi Wen Fenwu Xiaoci Divine Pure Emperor, temple number Gaozong, buried in Yuling of the Eastern Tomb of the Qing Dynasty in Zunhua, Hebei.
"The Qianlong Emperor is one is two pictures"
"The Qianlong Emperor is one is two pictures" is also known as "Qing people painting Hongli is one is two pictures" and "Hongli Jian Ancient Map", this drawing book, coloring, 118cm long, 61.2cm wide, no author's print, now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. This work is not original by a Qing court painter, but was ordered by the Qianlong Emperor to be painted by a painter modeled after the Song people's "Song Character Drawing", which is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
"Song Man Character Diagram"
According to legend, this painting of the Song people, originally collected by Emperor Huizong of Song, later spread to the Qing Palace, the Qianlong Emperor appreciated the elegance of the literati in it, so he stamped the "Qianlong" imperial treasure seal on the painting, and ordered court painters such as Ding Guanpeng to create a total of five similar pictures, and replaced the scribes in the Song paintings with their own heads.
The picture shows the Qianlong Emperor dressed in Han costumes and sitting on a couch to view various artifacts from the imperial collection. On the landscape painting screen that dots the indoor environment behind him, a portrait of the Qianlong Emperor sitting on the bed is hanging.
In the upper right corner of this painting is the Qianlong Emperor's imperial inscription: is one is two, not that is, not separation, Ru can be inked, why worry about it.
To the effect that the Qianlong Emperor asked: "The real me and the portrait me are one or two people?" Which is true and which is false? Among them, Confucianism and Mo refer to China's Confucianism and Mojia. The Qianlong Emperor believed that the relationship between the two, as traditional Chinese philosophical thoughts, was like the relationship between him sitting on the couch and his portrait on the screen, so he put forward the view that "one is two, not inseparable", indicating his profound views on Confucianism and Mojia doctrine and their ruling concept of summation.
This kind of portrait of the emperor in the form of picture-in-picture is not found in Western paintings, and among the Chinese emperors, only the Qianlong Emperor is the only one. Although similar in expression, in Song Dynasty paintings Chinese barefoot is slightly indecent, so in the paintings of the Qianlong Emperor, barefoot is cleverly covered by the artist with clothes.
The house is surrounded by bronzes, jade, porcelain, calligraphy and paintings, and ancient books, many of which can be found in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Palace Museum in Beijing. For example, on the painted rosewood round table on the right side of the canvas are placed Tang Shupan from the Spring and Autumn Period, Rao Lu Yao from the Shang Dynasty, Shang Dynasty Staff, Ming Dynasty Blue and White Flat Pot and Jade Incense Burner and other artifacts.
One of the most famous is a Han Dynasty "Xinmang Jialiang", which is one of the standard instruments issued by Wang Mang when he carried out the reform of weights and measures, and is a physical witness of this major historical event, which is ingenious in design, unique in shape, and excellent in casting, reflecting the highest level of scientific development and casting technology at that time, and is regarded as a model of weights and measures production by later generations, and is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The other is Ming Xuande's "Blue and Flower Sanskrit Halberd Jar", which is a Buddhist utensil fired by Jingdezhen for the court, finely made, ingenious, thick carcass, white and delicate fetal, glaze water and fertilizer, white in blue, thick glaze showing lake color, blue and white hair color, obvious iron spots and halo phenomenon, is a Xuande official kiln porcelain boutique, rare in the world, now collected in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
"Yes One is Two Pictures" shows us the rich collection of the Qianlong Emperor, and it is also a precious material for future generations to study history and explore discoveries.
"Emperor Gaozong's Moon View"
Because the Qing Dynasty painter Leng Zhen's "Moon Viewing Map" was deeply in Qianlong's sacred heart, he ordered the painter Lang Shining to copy it again, put himself in the painting, sat on a tree root chair, bent his legs, held Ruyi, and looked up at the night sky at 45 degrees to admire the moon.
Leng Yuan "Moon View"
"Qianlong Emperor Washing Image"
This picture is the color of the "Qianlong Emperor Washing Image" on paper, 132.3cm long and 62.5cm wide, now in the Palace Museum in Beijing. In the fifteenth year of Qianlong, the court painter Ding Guanpeng was ordered to imitate Ding Yunpeng's "Elephant Washing Map" in the Ming Dynasty as "Elephant Washing Map of the Qianlong Emperor". The picture shows the blue water bending around, green trees, strange rocks, and grass scattered among them, an elephant standing meekly in the shade, and children, monks, and other people bathing the elephant. The person seated in the painting is the Qianlong Emperor dressed as a Puxian Bodhisattva, who is intently looking at his elephant, and the elephant is also very comfortable looking at the Qianlong Emperor, as if communicating emotions with the master.
The lower left paragraph of the "Qianlong Emperor's Picture of Washing Images" reads: "In June of the fifteenth year of Qianlong, the minister Ding Guanpeng painted it. "Xia Jun" Chen Ding Guanpeng "Bai Wen Fangyin", "Gong Painting" Zhu Wen Fangyin. On the upper right of the frame, the Qianlong Emperor Zhuwen oval seal "The Treasure of the Qianlong Imperial View". The painter Ding Guanpeng entered the court in the fourth year of Yongzheng to walk for the painting academy, and was a master of the Yongzheng and Qianlong Dynasty painting academies, on a par with Tang Dai, Lang Shining, Zhang Zongcang and Jin Tingbiao, with profound attainments and appreciated by the Qianlong Emperor. In ancient times, Jingshi elephants paid tribute to Southeast Asia, and the phenomenon of washing elephants in the Yuan Dynasty had already existed in the Yuan Dynasty, and by the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Jingshi elephant washing had become a custom.
This picture is the "Hongli Caizhi Diagram" by Lang Shining. In the picture, both of them are wearing Han clothes, and the young scribe holds a zhizhi shape in one hand and a deer with the other, and his face resembles the Qianlong Emperor in his youth. A little boy in front, the Qianlong Emperor who looked like a teenager, carried a basket and hoe, and looked up at the youth.
It is known from the inscription "Prince Bao" written by Hongli that this picture should have been drawn between the eleventh and thirteenth years of the Yongzheng Dynasty, that is, between the twenty-third and twenty-fifth years of Hongli, when he was named "Prince Bao" by the Yongzheng Emperor. In addition, according to the inscription "Yongzheng Jia Yin" in Liang Shizheng in the picture, it can be further inferred that this picture depicts a portrait of Hongli when he was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, when he had not yet succeeded to the throne.
This song "How to be dashing Qingdu guest, easy for love cloud smoke." The basket is full of immortal Yanzhi, and the mango shoes do not step on the dust. In the mirror of Penglai, Xia Jin is like Nanhua Immortal. Who knows the real face of the year, the picture of the birth is accidental. Changchun resident self-titled. It was an inscription poem that the Qianlong Emperor added in his later years, referring to himself as "Qingdu Guest". The ancient meaning of "Qing capital" is not the imperial city, but the heavenly palace. He looked at the two people who were accidentally painted as cultivators and froze in the picture, how could he think of his former appearance? There seems to be both his spiritual ideal of pursuing "outside the world" and his majestic strategy in this world as the head of a country.
This picture is the axis of "Heian Spring Letter Map", which is the work of Qing dynasty painter Lang Shining. In the picture, there are two people, one old and one young, respectively, the Yongzheng Emperor and Hongli, who was still Prince Bao at that time. The father and son are both dressed in Chinese costumes, holding a plum blossom together, and Hongli's other hand is on the bamboo pole, which means that the bamboo reports peace and Mei transmits the spring letter. Several bamboo plants behind him are painted on a blue background with opaque paint, using the same Western realism techniques as the lake stone plum blossoms in the foreground.
The Qianlong Emperor inscribed a poem on a blue background: "Photographing the world is good at it, and I was a teenager." The one who entered the house, I don't know who this is? "Wanran" means the appearance of white hair, referring to the elderly Qianlong Emperor.
"Hongli Autumn Scenery Writing" axis