And the description of the activities of people from all walks of life on both sides of the Bianhe River with Hongqiao as the center reflects some aspects of social life in this historical period.

Hanlin Zhang Zeduan (twelfth century AD), a native of Zhucheng, Shandong, was a professional painter in the late Northern Song Dynasty. He once served in the Painting Academy and was good at painting figures, pavilions, boats and vehicles, etc.

The city outline, bridges, houses and huts painted in the picture are far and near, the grass and trees, horses, cattle, donkeys and camels are in and out, as well as the residents and travelers, the boats and carriages coming and going, all of them are expressive and can't be counted. The whole scene is complete.

Huge and extremely rich in content.

The painter used highly summarized and concentrated techniques to extensively and meticulously describe various complex social images and folk customs.

The immortal masterpiece "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" can be regarded as a national treasure in terms of both artistic value and historical value.

"Along the River During Qingming Festival" is 525 centimeters long and 25.5 centimeters wide. It contains 684 people, 96 livestock, 122 houses, 8 sedan chairs, 25 boats and 124 trees.

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival" scroll, a genre painting of the Northern Song Dynasty.

A masterpiece handed down from generation to generation and a first-class national treasure.

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is one of the most famous works in the history of Chinese painting. It is not only of high artistic level, but also has many interesting stories surrounding it.

The author Zhang Zeduan, whose courtesy name is Zhengdao, was born in Dongwu (now Zhucheng, Shandong).

He was a court painter during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty.

When he was young, he went to Bianliang (now Kaifeng, Henan Province) to study, and later learned painting. He especially liked to paint boats and carriages, city bridges, and Guojing, and became his own family.

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is Zhang Zeduan's masterpiece and was once collected by the Imperial Household of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Silk, light colors, 24.8 cm high and 528.7 cm long. The original work is now in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing.

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival" records the architecture and people's livelihood on both sides of the Bianhe River in the suburbs of Bianjing (now Kaifeng), the capital of the Huizong era, and in the city at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty and in the Huizong era.

This picture depicts the bustling scene and natural scenery of Bianliang, the capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty, and both sides of the Bianhe River during the Qingming Festival.

The work is in the form of a long scroll and adopts the composition method of scattered perspective to integrate complex scenery into a unified and varied picture. There are more than 500 characters in the painting, with different clothes and expressions. Various activities are interspersed with them, focusing on drama and composition.

It is dense and dense, pays attention to the changes in rhythm and rhyme, and the writing and ink composition are very clever.

The whole picture is divided into three paragraphs.

The first paragraph, the spring scenery in the countryside of Bianjing: In the mist of the sparse forest, a few huts, grass bridges, flowing water, old trees, and small boats are hidden.

Two porters drove five donkeys carrying charcoal towards the city.

In a willow forest, the branches have just turned green, making people feel that although the spring is cold and harsh, spring has returned to the earth.

There was a sedan on the road, with a woman sitting in it.

The top of the sedan chair was decorated with willows and miscellaneous flowers. Behind the sedan chair were horsemen and load bearers, returning from an outing in the suburbs of Beijing to sweep graves.

The description of the environment and characters highlights the specific time and customs of the Qingming Festival, which is the prelude to the whole painting.

In the middle section, the busy Bianhe River Wharf: Bianhe River was a national water transport hub in the Northern Song Dynasty and an important commercial transportation thoroughfare. From the picture, you can see that it is densely populated and grain ships gather. Some people are resting in teahouses, some are reading fortune-telling, and some are in

Eat at a restaurant.

There is also the "Wang's Paper Horse Shop", where people sweep tombs and sell sacrifices. Boats come and go in the river, connected end to end, either pulled by trackers or rowed by boatmen. Some are loaded with goods and sail upstream, and some are anchored on the shore.

Nervously unloading.

Across the Bianhe River is a large-scale wooden arch bridge with exquisite structure and graceful form.

It looks like a flying rainbow, hence the name Hongqiao.

There is a large ship waiting to cross the bridge.

The boatmen had bamboo poles to support them; some had long poles to hook the bridge; some had hemp ropes to hold the boat; and a few people were busy lowering the mast to allow the boat to pass.

The people on the neighboring boats were also pointing and shouting something.

Everyone inside and outside the boat was busy with the boat crossing the bridge.

People on the bridge also stretched their heads and sweated at the tense scene of crossing the boat.

This is the famous Hongqiao Wharf area, bustling with traffic and hustle and bustle. It is truly a meeting point for land and water transportation.

In the back section, there are lively urban streets: with the tall tower as the center, there are rows of houses on both sides, including teahouses, wine shops, foot shops, butcher shops, temples, public houses, etc.

The shop specializes in silk fabrics, jewelry and spices, incense, paper horses, etc. In addition, there are medical clinics, cart repairs, fortune telling, face shaping and plastic surgery, all kinds of industries, and large shops have "colorful" embroidery on the front.

"Louhuanmen" hangs market banners to solicit business. People on the street are crowded with each other, and there is a constant flow. There are merchants doing business, gentry watching the street scene, officials riding horses, hawkers, and family members riding in sedan chairs.

There are walking monks carrying baskets on their backs, tourists from other places asking for directions, children in the streets listening and reading, children from rich families drinking heavily in restaurants, disabled old people begging on the edge of the city, men, women, old and young, scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, three religions and nine streams, all

Unprepared.

Transportation means: sedans, camels, oxen and horse-drawn carriages, rickshaws, Taiping cars, flat-head cars, all kinds of things are available.

Paintings and shapes are displayed in front of people's eyes.