Chinese Painting 7 4 8 6 7 5 The handscroll of Along the River During the Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), ink and colour on silk, Song dynasty, 25.5 x 525 cm, Palace Museum, Beijing 2 3


Fig 5 The broken and disconnected willow with the passers-by


Fig 6 The danger at the Rainbow Bridge scene, showing the distressed ship about to hit the Rainbow Bridge


WATCH


Valerie Hansen, professor of


history at Yale, discuss the scroll


Fig 7 The eight people rowing a boat that is drifting towards the boat in distress at the Rainbow Bridge


into trouble, but if you stay alert you will survive. I think this is one of the themes that the painter wants to express in the scroll. Looking further along the scroll,


there are endless problems caused by negligence. Tere is a wooden bridge (generally called Rainbow Bridge) in the centre of the painting. When a boat arrives under the bridge, the mast is not even lowered, and it seems that the bridge and the boat are just about to collide in the very next second. ‘Rainbow Bridge Danger’ (Fig 6) is the most famous section of Along the River During the Qingming Festival. However, few people have noticed the full extent of the ‘danger’.


In fact, the


Rainbow Bridge Danger is not just a simple collision between a bridge and a boat. Tere is a large boat with eight people rowing (Fig 7) and moving towards a distressed ship nearby. Te eight people at the stern are rowing very hard while the boatman at the bow does not even look forward (Fig 8). Terefore, the distressed ship is being attacked from both sides. Even if it does not hit the bridge, it will be hit by the rowing boat. What is more, there is a boat


illegally parked under the


bridge, making it even more difficult for the distressed ship to pass. Due to space limitations, I will not elaborate on the interlocking dangers of this scene. In short, the complexity of Danger at Rainbow Bridge reflects the painter’s superb narrative skills through solid detail depiction and meticulous scene


construction. It


also allows those who are interested to see the metaphysical depths to consider deeper questions. It is worth


looking at in detail again and again. One of the themes of Along the


River During the Qingming Festival is the expression of carelessness or laxity. Tis theme can be seen in the scene of the grand brick city gate (Fig 9), but the city wall is shabby, a thin earth wall with very weak defence capabilities. As for the soldiers standing guard, there are none. Tere is


only one watchman who is


responsible for announcing the time, looking down from on top at the city and observing the excitement below. Tis city gate symbolises the nation’s gate. At that time, the northern military


forces were seriously


threatening the security of the Song dynasty, but national defence was weak and the soldiers were scattered and not formed into cohesive groups. People with insight would definitely worry about this situation. Obviously, the painter of Along the River During the Qingming Festival was consciously expressing this concern, hoping to attract the attention of the elite and commanders of the army to the looming crisis. Te earliest postscript says that the


author of this famous scroll is Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), originally a scholar, who only later in life turned to painting. So, we can understand that it is probably because of Zhang Zeduan’s education that he has a stronger altruistic value and a more conscious sense of responsibility than other painters of the time. He painted the scene before various accidents, just like people pressing the pause button at the most terrifying moment when watching a film. If it starts again, all kinds of crises will erupt, and everything will collapse in an instant.


Fig 8 Close-up of the crew on the distressed boat about to hit the Rainbow Bridge


Tis gives Along the River During the Qingming Festival unparalleled narrative potential. In addition to expressing the serious


themes of a pending crisis, the scroll also faithfully records many details of the lives of the people during the Song dynasty (960-1279), which significantly interprets them from a modern-day world perspective. People’s emotions and everyday actions


are universal and have remained the same throughout


centuries. For example, a barber shaves a customer, a waiter delivers takeout to a customer, a woman pours water into the river after washing clothes (her crotchless pants are hung on the boat awning), someone uses a fan to cover his face when he meets an acquaintance he does not want to see, and, oh, by the way, there is also a thief in the process of stealing something on the Rainbow Bridge, perhaps taking advantage of the chaos caused by the boat.


Te characters are vivid, and the


details are rich. It is hard to describe them, yet you want to explore this world time and time again. I wrote a book about it, but it has far from exhausted its charm for me. In the future, I will continue to study it and write about it so that more people can understand and enjoy it.


• Along the River During Qingming Festival, Unicorn Publishing,


ISBN 9781916846487, £30


Fig 9 The busy road that passes through the city’s grand brick gate ASIAN ART | WINTER 2024


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