Along the River During the Qingming Festival

Traditional: 清明上河圖, Simplified: 清明上河图
Artist	Zhang Zeduan
Year	1085-1145
Type	Panoramic painting
Dimensions	25.5 cm × 525 cm (10.0 in × 207 in)
Location	Palace Museum, Beijing

Along the River During the Qingming Festival (simplified Chinese: 清明上河图; traditional Chinese: 清明上河圖; pinyin: Qīngmíng Shànghé Tú) is a panoramic painting by Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145). It captures the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng. The theme celebrates the festive spirit and worldly commotion at the Qingming Festival, rather than the holiday's ceremonial aspects, such as tomb sweeping and prayers. The entire piece was painted in hand scroll format and the content reveals the lifestyle of all levels of the society from rich to poor as well as different economic activities in rural areas and the city. It offers glimpses of period clothing and architecture. As an artistic creation, the piece has been revered and court artists of subsequent dynasties have made several re-interpretive replicas. The painting is also known for its geometrically accurate images of variety natural elements and architectures, boats and bridges, market place and stores, people and scenery. It is often considered to be the most renowned work among all Chinese paintings,^[1][2][3] and it has been called "China's Mona Lisa."^[4]

Over the centuries, the Qingming scroll was collected and kept among numerous private owners, before it eventually returned to public ownership. The painting was a particular favorite of emperor Puyi, who took the Song Dynasty original (25.5 by 525 cm) (10 in by 17 ft 3 in)^[5] with him to Manchukuo. It was later re-purchased in 1945 and kept at the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City.

About 20 to 30 variations on this topic by artists of subsequent dynasties were made. Several Ming and Qing versions can be found in public and private collections around the world.^[6] Each version follows the overall composition of the original fairly faithfully, however, the details often vary widely. The Song Dynasty original and the Qing version, in the Beijing and Taipei Palace Museums respectively, are regarded as national treasures and are exhibited only for brief periods every few years. For instance, the wait in Beijing to see the painting was three and a half hours.^[7]

Features of the Song original[link]

The bridge scene where the crew of an oncoming boat have not yet fully lowered their sails and are in danger of crashing into the bridge

Scene of urban sprawl right before the bridge leading to the main gate of the city (seen on the far left)

The main gate of the city and the urban setting within, with teahouses, vendors, homes, and various figures interacting with one another

In the 5.28-meter long picture, there are 814 humans, 28 boats, 60 animals, 30 buildings, 20 vehicles, nine sedan chairs, and 170 trees.^[8] The countryside and the densely populated city are the two main sections in the picture, with the river meandering through the entire length.

The right section is the rural area of the city. There are crop fields and unhurried rural folk—predominately farmers, goatherds, and pig herders—in bucolic scenery. A country path broadens into a road and joins with the city road.

The left half is the urban area, which eventually leads into the city proper with the gates. Many economic activities, such as people loading cargoes onto the boat, shops, and even a tax office, can be seen in this area. People from all walks of life are depicted: peddlers, jugglers, actors, paupers begging, monks asking for alms, fortune tellers and seers, doctors, innkeepers, teachers, millers, metalworkers, carpenters, masons, and official scholars from all ranks.

Outside the city proper (separated by the gate to the left), there are businesses of all kinds, selling wine, grain, secondhand goods, cookware, bows and arrows, lanterns, musical instruments, gold and silver, ornaments, dyed fabrics, paintings, medicine, needles, and artifacts, as well as many restaurants. The vendors (and in the Qing revision, the shops themselves) extend all along the great bridge, called the Rainbow Bridge (虹橋 Hong Qiao) or, more rarely, the Shangtu Bridge (上土橋).

Where the great bridge crosses the river is the center and main focus of the scroll. A great commotion animates the people on the bridge. A boat approaches at an awkward angle with its mast not completely lowered, threatening to crash into the bridge. The crowds on the bridge and along the riverside are shouting and gesturing toward the boat. Someone near the apex of the bridge lowers a rope to the outstretched arms of the crew below.

In addition to the shops and diners, there are hotels, temples, private residences, and official buildings varying in grandeur and style, from huts to mansions with grand front- and backyards.

People and commodities are transported by various modes: wheeled wagons, beasts of labor (in particular, a large number of donkeys and mules), sedan chairs, and chariots. The river is packed with fishing boats and passenger-carrying ferries, with men at the river bank, pulling the larger ships.

Exhibition[link]

In a rare move, the Song original was exhibited in Hong Kong from 29 June to mid-August 2007 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's transfer to the People's Republic of China. It is estimated that the costs of shipping the painting ran into tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars in addition to an undisclosed cost of insuring this piece of priceless art.

From January 2-24, 2012, the painting was exhibited in the Tokyo National Museum as the centerpiece of a special exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of normalized diplomatic relations between China and Japan,^[9] with the Japanese museum officials providing the "highest security standards" for the work.^[10]

Remakes[link]

The original painting is celebrated as the most famed work of art from the Song Dynasty.^[11] It was a pride of the personal imperial collections of emperors for centuries.^[4] Due to its high artistic reputation, it has inspired several works of art that revived and updated the style of the original.

An early remake, generally considered to be very faithful to the original, was made by Zhao Mengfu during the Yuan Dynasty. Another notable remake was painted during the Ming Dynasty (14th to 17th centuries). This version has a length of 6.7 meters, longer than the original. It also replaced the scenery from the Song Dynasty to that of the Ming Dynasty based on contemporary fashions and customs, updating the costumes worn by the characters and the styles of vehicles (boats and carts). The Song wooden bridge is replaced with a stone bridge in the Ming remake. The arc of the stone bridge is much taller than that of the wooden original, and where the original had a boat about to crash into the bridge, the reinterpretation has a boat being methodically guided under the bridge by ropes, pulled by men ashore, several other large boats dutifully waiting their turn, undisturbed.^[12]

Another version by five Qing Dynasty court painters (Chen Mu, Sun Hu, Jin Kun, Dai Hong and Cheng Zhidao) was presented to the Emperor Qianlong on 15 January 1737. This version was later moved, along with many other artifacts, to the National Palace Museum in Taipei in 1949,^[13] shown below.

There are many more people, over 4,000, in the Qing remake, which also is much larger (at 11 metres by 35 cm, or 37 ft by 1 ft).^[14] The leftmost third of this version is within the palace, with buildings and people appearing refined and elegant. Most people within the castle are women, with some well-dressed officials. On the contrary, in the original Song version, the leftmost side is still the busy city.

Associated poem[link]

In April 1742, a poem was added to the right-most end of the Qing remake. The poem apparently was composed by Emperor Qianlong; the calligraphy is in the running script style, and is in the hand of Liang Shizheng (梁詩正), a prominent court official and frequent companion of Emperor Qianlong. The poem reads as follows:

Digital version[link]

For a three month period in the World Expo 2010 presented at the China Pavilion, the painting was remade into an 3D animated, viewer-interactive digital version, titled River of Wisdom, about 30 times the size of the original scroll. The computer animated mural, with moving characters and objects and portraying the scene in 4-minute day to night cycles, was one of the primary exhibitions in the Chinese Pavilion, drawing queues up to two hours with a reservation. Elaborate computer animation gives life to in the painting.

After the Expo, the digital version was on display at the AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong from November 9 to November 29, 2010,^[15] where it was a major commercial success.^[16] It was then exhibited at the Macau Dome in Macau from March 25 to April 14.^[17] The digital painting also traveled to Taiwan and displayed at the Expo Dome in Taipei from July 1 to September 4, 2011.^[18] From December 7, 2011 to February 6, 2012, in an exhibition titled A Moving Masterpiece: The Song Dynasty As Living Art, the digital reproduction was exhibited at the Singapore Expo.^[19]

Gallery[link]

Panorama of Along the River During Qingming Festival, 12th century original by Zhang Zeduan

Panorama of Along the River During Qingming Festival, an 18th century remake of the 12th century original

Translations of the title[link]

Scholars have disputed the accuracy of the translation of the painting's name; the word Qingming may refer to either the Qingming Festival or to "peace and order". Several translations have been use by various scholars, such as:

• Going Upriver on the Qingming Festival,
• Life along the Bian River at the Qingming Festival,
• Life Along the Bian River at the Pure Brightness Festival,
• Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival,
• Spring Festival on the River^[6]
• Spring Festival Along the River, or alternatively,
• Peace Reigns Over the River.

During the late 1960s, when the Taipei Palace Museum released a series of books (later digitized as CD-ROM), videos, and stamps about the scroll, it was translated simply and loosely as A City of Cathay.^[14][20][21]

Analysis[link]

Traditionally, three things have been accepted about the original painting:

• The city depicted is Kaifeng
• It was painted before the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty (1127)
• It depicts the Qingming Festival

Some recent scholarship challenges all three of those assertions:

• The city depicted is an idealized non-existent city^[22]
• It was painted after 1127
• It depicts a scene in early autumn

In 2003 a further interpretation was presented:^[23]

• The city depicted is indeed Kaifeng
• It depicts a day in the Qingming solar term of the Chinese calendar, but not the Qingming Festival itself

The wooden bridge depicted in the original version would later be rebuilt by a team of engineers and documented by the PBS television show NOVA during their Secrets of Lost Empires series.^[24]

See also[link]

• Chinese painting
• Culture of the Song Dynasty

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Along the River During the Qingming Festival

• Along the River During the Qingming Festival at China Online Museum
• Full interactive painting on the National Palace Museum website
• The Palace Museum, Beijing
• The National Palace Museum, Taiwan
• Interactive painting at the Harvard University
• Along the River During the Qingming Festival at the Columbia University

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Qingming
Burning paper gifts for the departed.
Official name	Qingming Jie (TC: 清明節, SC:清明节)
Also called	Tomb Sweeping Day All Souls Day
Observed by	Chinese
Significance	Remembering past ancestors
Date	15th day from the Spring Equinox Apr. 4, 5 or 6
2011 date	April 5
2012 date	April 4
2013 date	April 4
Observances	Cleaning and sweeping of graves, Ancestor worship, offering food to deceased, burning joss paper

The Qingming Festival (simplified Chinese: 清明节; traditional Chinese: 清明節; pinyin: Qīngmíng Jié; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chheng-bêng-cheh or Chhiⁿ-miâ-choeh, Ching Ming Festival in Hong Kong, Vietnamese: Tết Thanh Minh), Pure Brightness Festival or Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar (see Chinese calendar). Astronomically it is also a solar term (See Qingming). The Qingming festival falls on the first day of the fifth solar term, named Qingming. Its name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime (踏青 Tàqīng, "treading on the greenery") and tend to the graves of departed ones.

Qingming has been regularly observed as a statutory public holiday in Taiwan and in the Chinese jurisdictions of Hong Kong and Macau. Its observance was reinstated as a nation wide public holiday in mainland China in 2008.

The transcription of the term Qingming may appear in a number of different forms, some of which are Qingming, Qing Ming, Qing Ming Jie, Ching Ming (official in Hong Kong^[1]) and Ch'ing Ming Chieh.

Introduction[link]

The holiday is known by a number of names in the English language:

• All Souls Day (not to be confused with the Roman Catholic holiday, All Souls Day, of the same name)
• Clear Bright Festival
• Ancestors Day
• Festival for Tending Graves
• Grave Sweeping Day
• Chinese Memorial Day
• Tomb Sweeping Day
• Spring Remembrance

Tomb Sweeping Day and Clear Bright Festival are the most common English translations of Qingming Festival. Tomb Sweeping Day is used in several English language newspapers published in Taiwan.

Origin[link]

Qingming Festival is when Chinese people visit the graves or burial grounds of their ancestors. Traditionally, people brought a whole rooster with them to the graves visited but the occasion has become less formal over time. The festival originated from Hanshi Day (寒食节, literally, Day with cold food only), a memorial day for Jie Zitui (介子推). Jie Zitui died in 636 BC in the Spring and Autumn Period. He was one of many followers of Duke Wen of Jin before he became a duke. Once, during Wen's 19 years of exile, they had no food and Jie prepared some meat soup for Wen. Wen enjoyed it a lot and wondered where Jie had obtained the soup. It turned out Jie had cut a piece of meat from his own thigh to make the soup. Wen was so moved he promised to reward him one day. However, Jie was not the type of person who sought rewards. Instead, he just wanted to help Wen to return to Jin to become king. Once Wen became duke, Jie resigned and stayed away from him. Duke Wen rewarded the people who helped him in the decades, but for some reason he forgot to reward Jie, who by then had moved into the forest with his mother. Duke Wen went to the forest, but could not find Jie. Heeding suggestions from his officials, Duke Wen ordered men to set the forest on fire to force out Jie. However, Jie died in the fire. Feeling remorseful, Duke Wen ordered three days without fire to honour Jie's memory. The city where Jie died is still called Jiexiu (介休, literally "the place Jie rests forever").

Qingming has a tradition stretching back more than 2,500 years.^[2] Its origin is credited to the Tang Emperor Xuanzong in 732. Wealthy citizens in China were reportedly holding too many extravagant and ostentatiously expensive ceremonies in honor of their ancestors. Emperor Xuanzong, seeking to curb this practice, declared that respects could be formally paid at ancestors' graves only on Qingming.^[3] The observance of Qingming found a firm place in Chinese culture and continued since Ancient China

Celebration[link]

The Qingming Festival is an opportunity for celebrants to remember and honour their ancestors at grave sites. Young and old pray before the ancestors, sweep the tombs and offer food, tea, wine, chopsticks, joss paper accessories, and/or libations to the ancestors. The rites have a long tradition in Asia, especially among farmers. Some people carry willow branches with them on Qingming, or put willow branches on their gates and/or front doors. They believe that willow branches help ward off the evil spirit that wanders on Qingming.

On Qingming people go on family outings, start the spring plowing, sing, and dance. Qingming is also the time when young couples start courting. Another popular thing to do is to fly kites in the shapes of animals or characters from Chinese opera.^[3] Another common practice is to carry flowers instead of burning paper, incense or firecrackers.^[2]

The holiday is often marked by people paying respects to those who died in events considered sensitive in China. The April Fifth Movement and the Tiananmen Incident were major events on Qingming that took place in the history of the People's Republic of China. When Premier Zhou Enlai died in 1976, thousands visited him during the festival to pay their respects. Many also pay respects to victims of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and the graves of Zhao Ziyang and Yang Jia in areas where the right of free expression is generally recognized, as in Hong Kong. In most areas of China observance of sensitive events are suppressed and all public mention of such events is taboo.^[2] In Taiwan this national holiday is observed on April 5 because the ruling Kuomintang moved it to that date in commemoration of the death of Chiang Kai-shek on April 5.

Despite having no holiday status, the overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asian nations, such as those in Singapore and Malaysia, take this festival seriously and observe its traditions faithfully. Some Qingming rituals and ancestral veneration decorum observed by the oversea Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore can be dated back to Ming and Qing dynasties, as the oversea communities were not affected by the Cultural Revolution in Mainland China. Qingming in Malaysia is an elaborate family function or a clan feast (usually organized by the respective clan association) to commemorate and honour recently deceased relatives at their grave sites and distant ancestors from China at home altars, clan temples or makeshift altars in Buddhist or Taoist temples. For the oversea Chinese community, the Qingming festival is very much a family celebration and, at the same time, a family obligation. They see this festival as a time of reflection and to honour and give thanks to their forefathers. Overseas Chinese normally visit the graves of their recently deceased relatives on the nearest weekend to the actual date. According to the ancient custom, grave site veneration is only feasible ten days before and after the Qingming Festival. If the visit is not on the actual date, normally veneration before Qingming is encouraged. The Qingming Festival in Malaysia and Singapore normally starts early in the morning by paying respect to distant ancestors from China at home altars. This is followed by visiting the graves of close relatives in the country. Some follow the concept of filial piety to the extent of visiting the graves of their ancestors in mainland China. Traditionally, the family will burn spirit money and paper replicas of material goods such as cars, homes, phones and paper servants. In Chinese culture, it is believed that people still need all of those things in the afterlife. Then family members start take turns to kowtow three to nine times (depending on the family adherence to traditional values) before the tomb of the ancestors. The Kowtowing ritual in front of the grave is performed in the order of patriarchal seniority within the family. After the ancestor worship at the grave site, the whole family or the whole clan feast on the food and drink they brought for the worship either at the site or in nearby gardens in the memorial park, signifying family reunion with the ancestors.

Hanshi, the day before Qingming, was created by Chong'er, the Duke Wen of the state of Jin during the Spring and Autumn period. The festival was established after Chong'er accidentally burned to death his friend and servant Jie Zhitui (介之推) (or Jie Zitui) and Jie Zitui's mother. Chong'er ordered the hills in which they were hiding set on fire in the hope that Jie Zitui would return to his service, but the fire killed Jie and his mother. Because of this, people were not allowed to use fires to heat up food and the date became named Hanshi. Eventually, 300 years ago, the Hanshi "celebration" was combined with the Qingming festival and later abandoned by most people.

In Chinese tea culture[link]

The Qingming festival holiday has a significance in the Chinese tea culture since this specific day divides the fresh green teas by their picking dates. Green teas made from leaves picked before this date are given the prestigious 'pre-qingming' (清明前) designation which commands a much higher price tag. These teas are prized for having much lighter and subtler aromas than those picked after the festival.^{[citation needed]}

In painting[link]

The famous Qingming scroll by Zhang Zeduan is an ancient Chinese painting which portrays the scene of Kaifeng city, the capital of the Song Dynasty during a Qingming festival.

Panorama of Along the River During the Qingming Festival, 12th century original by Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145)

Panorama of Along the River During the Qingming Festival, an 18th century remake of the 12th century original

In literature[link]

Qingming was frequently mentioned in Chinese literature. Among these, the most famous one is probably Du Mu's poem (simply titled "Qingming"):

(The word 酒家 can have multiple meanings: winehouse, inn, tavern, restaurant, hostel, hotel or motel. The most common and most appropriate translation for '酒家' should be 'inn' or 'tavern.'"

In the Vietnamese epic poem The Tale of Kieu, Qingming is mentioned as the occasion when the protagonist Kieu meets a ghost of a dead old lady. The lines describing the sceneries during this festival remain some of the most well-known lines in Vietnamese literature:

See also[link]

• Traditional Chinese holidays
• Cold Food Festival, three consecutive days starting the day before the Qingming Festival
• Double Ninth Festival, the other day to visit and clean up the cemeteries in Hong Kong
• Ghost Festival
• Day of the Dead
• Hansik, a related Korean holiday on the same day
• Along the River During Ching Ming Festival by Zhang Zeduan
• Songkran, South and Southeast Asia equivalents

References[link]

External links[link]

• Clear Brightness Festival - Qing Ming

v t e Public holidays in the People's Republic of China Golden Weeks Spring Festival • National Day Other Holidays New Year's Day • Lantern Festival • Qingming Festival • Workers' Day • Duanwu Festival • Mid-Autumn Festival