Jiangnan Culture and Art Exhibition
In May, the "Spring Breeze - Jiangnan Culture and Art Exhibition" opened at the Shanghai Museum. The exhibition exhibits a total of 197 groups of cultural relics, mainly in the collection of cultural relics in the Shanghai Museum, and borrows important cultural relics of 15 cultural institutions such as Anhui Museum, Hunan Provincial Museum, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Nanjing Museum, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, etc., covering bone horn ware, jade ware, bronze ware, ceramics, calligraphy and painting, ancient books, lacquerware, furniture, seals and many other categories.
The "Spring Breeze And Thousand Miles - Jiangnan Culture and Art Exhibition" opens with Wang Fei's "Kangxi Southern Tour Map Powder Book" of the Qing Dynasty, introducing the five major sections of the exhibition, telling the story of Jiangnan, which advocates courage and wisdom and elegance, Jiangnan, which is safe and elegant, Jiangnan, where Peace and Happiness and Mingde are self-cultivation, Jiangnan where Yangchun White Snow and City Well Floating Life, and Jiangnan where Shouzhen Shouzhen and Hai Na Baichuan are admired, so that the audience can appreciate the beauty of art while feeling the weight of history and experiencing Jiangnan culture.
Kangxi Southern Tour Map
The Qing Dynasty's "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" is a large historical picture scroll based on the second southern tour of the Kangxi Emperor (1689), with a total of 12 volumes and a total length of more than 200 meters. In addition to showing the deeds of the Kangxi Emperor's southern tour, it also reflects a large number of local customs and customs, mountains and rivers, and socio-economic culture along the way, which is a rare long scroll of historical customs.
The Kangxi Emperor Xuan Ye, the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the second emperor after the Qing army entered the customs. He ascended the throne at the age of eight and reigned for sixty-one years (1662-1722), the longest reigning emperor in Chinese history. During his reign, he made six tours of Jiangnan in 1684, 1689, 1699, 1703, 1705, and 1707. The purpose of Kangxi's southern tour was mainly to control the flooding of the Yellow River, and to visit the sufferings of the people and rectify the governance of officials. In addition, he visited the Confucius Temple on his southern tour, paid a special visit to the Dayu Tomb, and sacrificed the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, in order to show that the Qing Dynasty was the inheritor of China's orthodox culture and the successor of the orthodox imperial power. He also introduced a policy of giving preferential treatment to Jiangnan scholars, eliminating ethnic estrangement, winning the support and support of the landlords and gentry and intellectuals in Jiangnan, and strengthening the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty.
The Kangxi Emperor toured the south, the entourage was huge, and the local officials were sent to the south, which cost a lot. Cao Xueqin's "Dream of the Red Chamber" in the sixteenth "Jia Yuanchun cai fengzao palace Qin Whale Qing died Huangquan Road" wrote:
“
Sister Feng smiled:
"Sure enough, I've seen a big world." I hate that I was a few years younger, if I had been born twenty or thirty years earlier, now these old people are not thin I have not seen the world. Speaking of the story of Emperor Taizu's imitation of Shun Patrol, it was more lively than a book, and I didn't catch up! Grandma Zhao said, "Oh, that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" That's when I remembered. We in Jia Fu are supervising the construction of sea vessels and repairing sea ponds in the area of Gusu and Yangzhou. Prepare to take the ride only once, and spend the silver like water flowing water! Speaking of—" Sister Feng hurriedly continued, "We have also prepared once in the palace." At that time, my grandfather was in charge of the tribute and pilgrimage of various countries, and whenever foreigners came, they were supported by our family. All the foreign ship cargo in Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan and Zhejiang is our family. Grandma Zhao said, "Who doesn't know that?" Now there is also a saying, saying 'The East Sea is missing a white jade bed, and the Dragon King invites the King of Jinling', which means that Grandma's house is on it. Now there is still the Zhen family in Jiangnan, Hi Yo, the good power faction, and they take over the car four times. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have told no one to believe it. Don't say that silver has become dung, but there is no one in the world who does not pile mountains and seas. The four words 'sin is a pity' can't be taken care of! ”
”
The past that Feng Jie and Grandma Zhao talk about is the story of the Kangxi Emperor's southern tour, which makes people think about it after reading it.
In addition to the relevant accounts in literary stories, Kangxi's second southern tour also left a valuable pictorial record, which is the famous "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" volume. The second southern tour began on the eighth day of the first lunar month in the twenty-eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1689) and lasted for fifty-four days. In the thirtieth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1691), Xuan Ye specially ordered the left deputy capital of the Imperial Household, Yushi Song Junye, to summon painters to depict the southern tour with pictures. It is worth mentioning that, according to the custom of the Qing Palace, the work of organizing painters to create court paintings was subordinate to the Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the post of supervising the painting of the "Southern Tour Map" was held by Cao Quan of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Cao Quan was the younger brother of Cao Yin, the weaver of the Suzhou Weaving House, so cao Xueqin's content about kangxi's southern tour reflected in "Dream of the Red Chamber" with the help of Feng Jie and Grandma Zhao's conversation is not unfounded.
Qing Wang Yi et al. "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" (partial)
Dimensions: length 67.8 cm Width 1500-2600 cm
Texture: Silk color
It is now in the Palace Museum
Song Junye (?1713), zishengqiu, trumpet Jianzhai, Suzhou native. He is good at calligraphy and painting, and he is good at landscapes. In order to successfully complete the creation of the "Southern Tour Map", Song Junye invited the famous landscape painter Wang Yi from Jiangnan to Beijing to preside over the painting work. Wang Yi (1632-1717), zi Shigu, no. He is good at painting, and studied under Wang Shimin and Wang Jie, and is one of the "Four Kings" in the early Qing Dynasty. Drawing the "Kangxi Southern Tour Map", he was also the most suitable person at that time. Wang Cui also entered Beijing with his student Yang Jin and others. Yang Jin (1644-1728), Zihe, Xiting, Changshu, Jiangsu. Yang Jin studied landscape painting from Wang Yi, in addition, he is also good at painting cattle, flowers, birds, grasses and insects, as well as portraits of people and rural scenes. When Wang Yi painted landscape paintings, all figures, public cars, camels, horses, cattle and sheep, etc., were often ghostwritten by him. Therefore, Yang Jin participated in the drawing of the "Southern Tour Map", and Wang Cuizheng can be described as a tiger adding wings. In addition, due to the huge painting project, in addition to Wang Yi and Yang Jin's master and apprentice, there were also some court painters involved.
The drawing of the Kangxi Southern Tour map is not an easy task. Not only are the scenes and characters painted with a large number of contents and a huge amount of work, but also the various utensils used in the court, the costumes and costumes of the characters, the etiquette of the ceremonial guards, etc., all of which must comply with the rules and regulations, and cannot be rushed to engage in, and cannot tolerate any deviation. At the same time, the image of the Kangxi Emperor Xuan Ye himself appears many times, which is also a big challenge for the painter. Kangxi's portrait must not only be painted extremely realistically, but also highlight his "supreme" imperial power and prestige among the many human figures, which makes him personally satisfied. The painters who undertake this work, especially Wang Yi, in addition to having superb painting skills, must also have superior courage, otherwise they are incompetent.
There are twelve volumes of the Kangxi Southern Tour Map, of which the Kangxi Emperor Xuan Ye began to paint from the Beijing Division, passed through Shandong, Wuxi and other places, and painted until the Dayu Tomb in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, with a total of nine volumes. Then he painted the scene of leaving Zhejiang and returning to The Capital, passing through Nanjing, until returning to the Beijing Division, with a total of three volumes of "Huiluan Tu". Each scroll is 67.8 cm high, and the length varies. The long one is more than 2,600 centimeters long, and the short one is more than 1,500 centimeters. The whole map was master planned and designed by Wang Halo, and the draft was drawn first, and after it was submitted to Xuan Ye for permission, the main draft was begun to be drawn. At present, the Kangxi Southern Tour map has preserved several volumes of sketches, which are stored in the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Palace Museum in Shenyang, and the Nanjing Museum. After the sketch was determined, Wang Yi made overall arrangements, and the painters drew them in sections. After the drawing of each section is completed, it is uniformly polished by Wang Yi. The whole process took three years before it was finally completed. The original draft of the Kangxi Southern Tour was presented by Song Junye to the Kangxi Emperor Xuan Ye, who greatly appreciated it. Xuan Ye not only gave Wang Yi a heavy reward, but also wrote the four characters of "Shanshui Qinghui" to reward him. In his later years, Wang Yi called himself "Old Man Qinghui", which commemorated this honor in his life.
Wang Yi
The volume of "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" is a huge historical picture that reflects the grandeur of the Kangxi Emperor's southern tour, which depicts different events at different times and places in the form of group paintings, which not only highlights the main events and key plots, but also has the coherence of time and space, and opens the precedent of Chinese historical theme paintings. At the same time, the "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" volume is also a large-scale customs scroll that reflects the social customs and customs of the Kangxi Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty. In the history of Chinese painting, the most famous genre painting is the Northern Song Dynasty Zhang Zeduan's "Qingming On the River" volume. The volume "Map of the Upper River of the Qing Ming Dynasty" reproduces the bustling urban style of the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty with superb painting skills, and is respected and continuously imitated by later generations. The volume of "Kangxi Southern Tour Map" inherits the fine tradition of long-scroll custom painting, and depicts the different mountains and water colors, city customs, and commercial traffic along the Kangxi Southern Tour with Seiko brushwork, and the scene is real and vivid, which is an important image material for studying social life in this period. Because this picture was completed by many painters under the leadership of Wang Yi, it gathered the strengths of all the families and unified the landscape scenery, town appearance, rural scene, boats, carriages and horses, and portraits of people on the picture with a variety of painting methods such as ink freehand, heavy color, and boundary painting, which is the crystallization of collective wisdom.
The twelve volumes of the Kangxi Southern Tour were originally collected in the Palace Museum, but are no longer complete, scattered and scattered. At present, the first, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth volumes are in the Collection of the Palace Museum; the second and fourth volumes are in the Guimet Museum in Paris, France; the third volume is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, usa; and the seventh volume is in the Collection of Albert University in Edmonton, Canada. The sixth volume, which was tragically divided into several segments, is now in the hands of private collectors.
This article is excerpted from "Jiangnan Calligraphy and Painting", published by Shanghai People's Publishing House in June 2020, slightly edited, subject to the original text.
《Jiangnan Calligraphy and Painting》
By Li Lan
Shanghai People's Publishing House
June 2020
Jiangnan land is beautiful and fertile, Jiangnan people are handsome and beautiful, and Jiangnan culture is full of poetry. All this wisdom and affection are carried by material relics, allowing the world to look up to them. Based on the cultural landscape of Jiangnan region, "Jiangnan Calligraphy and Painting" excavates the characteristics and connotations of calligraphy and painting art in Jiangnan through the in-depth and simple interpretation of famous masterpieces of representative significance, and presents the dominant position of "Jiangnan Calligraphy and Painting" in the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting and the radiation and influence of other regions.
The book selects more than 30 famous works in the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting, tells its birth, records its circulation, explains its style, interprets its meaning, and also pays a lot of ink on the author's life experience and cultural influence behind the works, so that through these shining artistic treasures, roughly string together a history of the development of Jiangnan calligraphy and painting from the Western Jin Dynasty to modern times. The books are all selected by famous artists who have had a profound impact on the art of calligraphy and painting in Jiangnan and even the whole of China, including Lu Ji's "Ping Fu Ti" volume, Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Sequence" and its facsimiles, Gu Kaizhi's "Female History Zhentu" volume, Sun Wei's "Gao Yi Tu" volume, Zhao Mengfu's "Xiushi Shulin Tu" scroll, Wang Mian's "MoMei Tu" axis, Ni Zhan's "Yuzhuang Qiuji Tu" axis, Tang Yin's "Autumn Wind Fan Map" axis, Dong Qichang's "Eight Views of Qiuxing" scroll, Zheng Xie's "Bamboo Stone Orchid Diagram" axis, Wu Changshuo's "Red Plum Diagram" axis, etc. The style of the famous painting schools in the Jiangnan region has been presented relatively completely.