Handscroll; Color on silk; 1159cm(width)*22cm(height) This painting depicts a lively, busy scene along the banks of the Bian River outside the Eastern Corner Gate in Bianlian, then capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, at the Qingming Festival. The festival is a traditional holiday and one of the 24 solar terms. Customary activities include tomb sweeping, serving of cold food, picking willow branches, picnicking, and kite flying, all of which are fully displayed in the painting. A flow of wagons and carriages fills the streets, alongside both busy and idle peddlers, with farmers working in the background. The brushstrokes in elegant colors are both meticulous and free, offering a bird's eye panorama.
The painting Qingming Shang He Tu ("Scenes along the River during the Qingming Festival"),an over 16-foot panorama running from right to left, is considered to be one of the most brilliant works in Chinese art history. It is a masterpiece of realism, recording the pulse of a thriving, historical town and showing extraordinary detail.
The Along the River During the Qingming Festival was painted by Chang Ze-Duan of North Song Dynasty on silk. Painted in light colors, it is 528cm wide and 24.8cm tall. Qingming implies Qingming Festival or Tomb Sweeping Festival. “Shang He” (above the river) was a norm at that time. After worshipping the ancestors and sweeping their tombs, people would get on the bridge to enjoy the view of Bianjing and River Bian. Or they may wander along the bridge and buy snacks from the vendors there and visit the riverside towns. This is what “Qingming Shang He” means. In the painting, we can see many of the norms of Qingming Festival, such as the pasted paper building miniatures in front of the “Wang’s Paper Horse Shop,” the tomb sweeping team with sedan chairs decorated with willow branches and flowers outside the city, the vendors selling mud figurines at the entrances of the bridge, the people gathering and drinking after tomb sweeping, and more. These scenes are similar to the descriptions of The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor. In short, it is a masterpiece of social norms painting completed in the Song Dynasty. Cosmos Classics hopes to delineate and demonstrate the connotations and beauty of Along the River During the Qingming Festival in a candid attitude to allow readers to feel the beauty of this portrayal of the Bianjing in North Song Dynasty nine hundred years ago through textual guides of this book and the appreciation of this painting. In addition, it is hoped that readers can feel the Chang Ze-Duan’s dedication in the layout and thinking of this painting. We write in a comprehensive manner to provide readers guides to the entire painting in detail with this book to render the interpretations of the North Song Dynasty as faithfully as possible to its original look and feel. We would like to apologize for any imperfection in researches and proofreading of this book. Regarding the arrangements of the contents in this book, it begins with three chapters “The Historic Values of Along the River During the Qingming Festival,” “Imperial Painting Academy (Hanlin Tuhua Yuan) during the North Song Society and the Painter Chang Ze-Duan,” and “Bianjing and Transportations on the River Bian at the North Song Dynasty” to present an overall view of the contents, painter, and historical background of this painting. In the “Conclusion” at the end of this book, the painting techniques and contents of this work are analyzed in detail to allow readers to understand the intentions of Chang Ze-Duan better. The reference section is attached to communicate the careful attitude of and the references cited by Cosmos Classics to show our respect for the writers and researchers. The major task of this book is to introduce this lengthy scroll. From right to left, it is divided into three parts in accordance with their themes “Leisure Atmosphere in the Suburb Greens,” “The Busy Water Transportation on River Bian,” and “The Prosperous Bianjing City.” According to their features, Along the River During the Qingming Festival is divided into forty zones. In the beginning of the essay, a lighted and focused thumbnail is provided to allow readers to understand the location of the discussions. In the essays, magnified graphics of the small zones are attached as illustrations to allow readers to observe every person and every corner carefully in detail. The major reference of this book The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor, which records the events happening between 1102 and 1125, during the time of prosperity of Bianjing from the year of Chongning to the year of Xuanhe of Hui Zhong of North Song Dynasty, during the years of the completion of this painting. In addition, history,journals and poetry written on Song Dynasty are also referenced to explain the characters, events and things portrayed in the painting, hoping to remain faithful to the theme. As to the professional parts, the Treatise on Architectural Methods or State Building Standards is consulted to compare with the structure of the architecture in the painting. The Exploitation of the Works of Nature is consulted to find out the structure of the boats. “On the Carts and Costumes” in Song History is consulted to pinpoint the making of the carts, sedan chairs and costumes of that period. The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor is consulted to examine the social norms and the geographical location of the capital. Of course, reference books and articles on Along the River During the Qingming Festival are read to present a complete interpretation on the painting. The great Jiehua(Margin Painting) painter Chang Ze-Duan left us with the first hand materials of the image of capital city in the North Song Dynasty, including trade and commercial activities, costumes and social norms architectural style, furniture and vessels, transportation, and more. All of them are of high historical value. Moreover, its humanistic connotations and sensations allow us to read and re-read this painting. The closer we read it, the more we can find the painter’s intentions. It always impresses us with its infinite charms that echo in our hearts. Therefore, it is regarded as a classic in Chinese and world history of art. Ranked as one of the top ten Chinese paintings, it is also renowned as the “first and heavenly work in Chinese painting.” Viewing this picture Along the River During the Qingming Festival in the 21st century, it still wins our exclamations. This masterpiece has been passed down from generation to generation, having gone through wars and dynasties, and shifts in times, with unchanging values. Great paintings can always prevail over the limits of time and space to become immortal, demonstrating the beauty of aesthetics and universal human values. Although Along the River During the Qingming Festival is not the only painting that portrays the capital in Chinese history, it is the most complete painting that captures the social norms and characters of Bianjing in art history. From the illustrations, deconstructive interpretations, and plain and simple introduction of this book, readers can have a glimpse of the authentic picture of Bianjing during the North Song Dynasty. Reminiscing the past, Cosmos Classics has edited and released Along the River During the Qingming Festival by Chang Ze-Duan, a North Song Dynasty painter, in electronic book format. It is hoped that Chinese of this generation can converse with tradition to fuse the ancient with the modern. Reading the classics, we may be inspired to lay down milestones for modern arts. In addition, we are enthusiastic to share them globally to allow international people to immerse themselves in the beauty of Chinese arts.
Confucian Zhangzi: Poet, writer, calligrapher and painter. He has successively served as the planner of the Yangcheng Evening News, editor of the Journal of Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, dean of Xi'an Academy of Arts, and visiting professor of Micro Art at South China University of Science and Technology. He has published many poetry collections, novels, scripts, and monographs; and won the Outstanding Contribution Award for Cultural Exchange of the Russian Writers Association.
In the 1100s China was arguably the richest country in the world, having experienced several centuries of sustained economic growth. A key factor in this prosperity was a commercial revolution that greatly expanded trade across the region.
A book without words, recounting a day in the life of an office worker, told completely in the symbols, icons, and logos of modern life. Twenty years ago I made Book from the Sky, a book of illegible Chinese characters that no one could read. Now I have created Book from the Ground, a book that anyone can read. —Xu Bing Following his classic work Book from the Sky, the Chinese artist Xu Bing presents a new graphic novel—one composed entirely of symbols and icons that are universally understood. Xu Bing spent seven years gathering materials, experimenting, revising, and arranging thousands of pictograms to construct the narrative of Book from the Ground. The result is a readable story without words, an account of twenty-four hours in the life of “Mr. Black,” a typical urban white-collar worker. Our protagonist's day begins with wake-up calls from a nearby bird and his bedside alarm clock; it continues through tooth-brushing, coffee-making, TV-watching, and cat-feeding. He commutes to his job on the subway, works in his office, ponders various fast-food options for lunch, waits in line for the bathroom, daydreams, sends flowers, socializes after work, goes home, kills a mosquito, goes to bed, sleeps, and gets up the next morning to do it all over again. His day is recounted with meticulous and intimate detail, and reads like a postmodern, post-textual riff on James Joyce's account of Bloom's peregrinations in Ulysses. But Xu Bing's narrative, using an exclusively visual language, could be published anywhere, without translation or explication; anyone with experience in contemporary life—anyone who has internalized the icons and logos of modernity, from smiley faces to transit maps to menus—can understand it.
LITERARY WONDERS With Qing Ming Shanghe Tu: The River of Wisdom, Books for Growing Minds introduces the writing duo of J'miah Nabawi and Chunzie "Evie" Zhang. Also known as Along the River During the Qingming Festival, the cover image is a painting by the Song dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan. It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng, from the Northern Song period. The theme is often said to celebrate the festive spirit and worldly commotion at the Qingming Festival, rather than the holiday's ceremonial aspects, such as tomb sweeping and prayers. Successive scenes reveal the lifestyle of all levels of the society from rich to poor as well as different economic activities in rural areas and the city, and offer glimpses of period clothing and architecture. The painting is considered to be the most renowned work among all Chinese paintings, and it has been called "China's Mona Lisa." Chunzi Zhang and J'miah Nabawi present and weave into a tapestry of storytelling based upon Chinese history, the arts and family life centered around the painting. An interested read and preservation of cultural artifacts and social interaction."
Eulogy for Burying a Crane (Yi he ming) is perhaps the most eccentric piece in China’s calligraphic canon. Apparently marking the burial of a crane, the large inscription, datable to 514 CE, was once carved into a cliff on Jiaoshan Island in the Yangzi River. Since the discovery of its ruins in the early eleventh century, it has fascinated generations of scholars and calligraphers and been enshrined as a calligraphic masterpiece. Nonetheless, skeptics have questioned the quality of the calligraphy and complained that its fragmentary state and worn characters make assessment of its artistic value impossible. Moreover, historians have trouble fitting it into the storyline of Chinese calligraphy. Such controversies illuminate moments of discontinuity in the history of the art form that complicate the mechanism of canon formation. In this volume, Lei Xue examines previous epigraphic studies and recent archaeological finds to consider the origin of the work in the sixth century and then trace its history after the eleventh century. He suggests that formation of the canon of Chinese calligraphy over two millennia has been an ongoing process embedded in the sociopolitical realities of particular historical moments. This biography of the stone monument Eulogy for Burying a Crane reveals Chinese calligraphy to be a contested field of cultural and political forces that have constantly reconfigured the practice, theory, and historiography of this unique art form. Art History Publication Initiative A McLellan Book
