Along the River During the Qingming Festival

Painting attributed to Zhang Zeduan

Along the River During the Qingming Festival (Qingming Shanghe Tu) is a handscroll painting by the Song dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145) and copied many times in the following centuries. It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing (present day Kaifeng) during the Northern Song. 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. Read right to left, as a viewer unrolled it, successive scenes reveal the lifestyle of all levels of the society from rich to poor as well as economic activities in rural areas and the city, and offer glimpses of period clothing and architecture. As an artistic creation, the painting has been revered and artists of subsequent dynasties made hundreds of replicas, copies of copies, and even forgeries of well regarded copies, each following the overall composition and the theme of the original but differing in detail and technique. Over the centuries, the Song original was kept by private collectors before it eventually returned to public ownership. The painting was a particular favorite of Puyi, the last emperor of China, who took it with him when he was forced to leave the Forbidden City in 1924. It was recovered in 1945 and kept at the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City. The Song original and later versions are regarded as national treasures and are exhibited only for brief periods every few years.

The original painting is celebrated as the most famed work of art from the Song dynasty. However, little was directly known about its painter, who is generally presumed to be Zhang Zeduan, since records were destroyed when the Jin dynasty overthrew the Northern Song dynasty. There is continued debate and research over its creator, the date and location of where it was painted, and the intended meaning of the work. The earliest attribution to Zhang Zeduan is an inscription dated 1186, which was added on the basis of an earlier catalogue by the Jin imperial curator, Zhang Zhu (active late 12th century) to the original scroll:

Hanlin [Academician] Zhang Zeduan, courtesy name Zhengdao, was a native of Dongwu. He went to the capital to study when he was young. Later he learned painting. He mastered jiehua and took particular pleasure in depicting boats, carts, markets, bridges, city walls, and streets. He even established his own style. According to Mr. Xiang's critiques on paintings, [the works] Xihu zhengbiao tu (Dragon Boat Regatta on the West Lake) and Qingming shanghe tu belong to the divine class; collectors should treasure them. The scroll is in height and long. In its length there are 814 humans, 28 boats, 60 animals, 30 buildings, 20 vehicles, 8 sedan chairs, and 170 trees. Only about twenty women appear in the Song dynasty original, and only women of low social rank are visible out of doors unless accompanied by men. 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 Shangdu 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 tow 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 inns, 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. Many of these details are roughly corroborated by Song dynasty writings, principally the Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, which describes many of the same features of life in the capital.

In a rare move, the Song original was exhibited in Hong Kong from June 29 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 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, with the Japanese museum officials providing the "highest security standards" for the work.

For a three month period in the World Expo 2010 presented at the China Pavilion, the original painting was remade into a 3D animated, viewer interactive digital version, titled River of Wisdom; at 128 × 6.5 m, it is roughly 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 and 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 the painting. After the Expo, the digital version was on display at the AsiaWorld–Expo in Hong Kong from November 9 to 29, 2010, where it was a major commercial success. It was then exhibited at the Macau Dome in Macau from March 25 to April 14, 2011. The digital painting also traveled to Taiwan and displayed at the Expo Dome in Taipei from July 1 to September 4, 2011. 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. Today, it is on permanent exhibition at the China Art Museum, Shanghai.