History Essay: Along the River during the Qingming Festival

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Along the River During the Qingming Festival
The panoramic painting, "Along the River During the Qingming Festival," is generally attributed to Zhang Zeduan (1085 – 1145), an artist for the Song dynasty (Zeduan & Wei, 2010). The painting captures the people's ordinary life during Zhang's song period at the Bianjing capital; today referred to as Kaifeng in Henan. The paint was done on silk, and it measures 25.5 centimeters in width by 5.25 meters in length. The painting's frontispiece is imperial poetry by Qianlong Emperor that had been transliterated by his court official Liang Shizheng. At the far left of the end of the painting is a signature inscription of artists reading, "Respectfully done by your servants …, and reverently submitted to the Emperor on the fifteenth day of the 12th month of Qianlong first year (1736) (Zeduan & Wei, 2010)." There are also two seal impressions, i.e., the servant Mei and the servant Sun Hu that appears within the writings. The painting is a revelation of the people's lifestyle and an impression of how subjective they were to the leadership and the time of painting.
The painting's theme resonates with the festival mood and thriving street scenery during the Qingming Festivals, not the festival's ritualistic aspect, which entailed prayers and sweeping tombs. The painting is divided into five main segments. The first segment is the serene rustic scenery; the second focuses on the rainbow bridge and represents the peak, focusing on the crowded market setting. The third segment is a busy city gate, while the fourth is a progression from a wooden hall to a massive ligneous bridge with a backdrop from all borders of the river. The last segment is a display of a beautiful site of Lake Jinming. Architectural elements in the entire painting borrow from a western perspective.
Crowded Market
The painting done in a handscroll format reflects society's lifestyle, from the poorest to the richest. Additionally, structures and streets distinctively render an appropriate proportion. The distance between the near and the far accurately grasped. The painting also has even western-style architecture. The painting in the entire hand-scroll in particular and the blush dazzles. The painting is a pearl of realism and perceptiveness in Chinese painting (Zeduan & Wei, 2010). The crowded market in the painting also illustrates incongruous economic events in rural and urban areas. It offers indications of architecture and the clothing of the time. As an artistic creation, the artwork was respected by many artists and redone numerous times as the court artists of successive dynasties subjected it to many re-interpretive replicas.
The crowd...