Composition and Image Processing of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival truly reproduces the prosperous scene of Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, during the Qingming Festival. It is a great realistic painting art treasure. The works are not only rich in content and vivid in image, but also the architectural layout and people's life and labor in the picture provide valuable video materials for future generations to study the history of the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the works have high historical document value and artistic research value. This paper attempts to reveal the creative law of China's traditional painting by analyzing the composition and images of his works, so as to help people improve their appreciation of painting art. ..

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a silk scroll drawn by Zhang Zeduan, a painter of the Northern Song Dynasty, which depicts the bustling scene of Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, during the Qingming Festival. The riverside scene on Qingming Festival was a folk custom at that time, like today's holiday party. The whole picture is large in scale and rigorous in structure. It is roughly divided into three sections: the first section is suburban landscape painting, the second section is Bianhe, and the third section is urban market. One is the scene on the outskirts of Bianjing, where farmers are farming in the fields and rich people come back from sweeping graves. On the way, the packers, porters and passengers hurried into the city. Next is the most wonderful part-Bianhe. The arch bridge on the Bianhe River is like a rainbow. Pedestrians on the bridge are like a tide, bustling, jostling shoulder to shoulder, and ships under the bridge compete for beauty. Many small plots are very interesting, such as a frightened horse causing danger on the bridge, the donkey being frightened and the curious people watching. Then describe the Bianjing market. Bianjing, as the political, economic and cultural center at that time, was full of yamen, houses, workshops and restaurants, with scattered houses, busy streets and diverse religions. The picture then unfolds a calm scene, with a degree of relaxation and relaxation, forming an interesting contrast and rhythm. By describing the architecture, commerce and transportation of Bianjing, the painter reproduces the prosperity and development of the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. There are more than 550 people, more than 60 kinds of livestock, more than 20 wooden boats, more than 30 pavilions and more than 20 trolleys in the painting. Such rich and colorful contents are rare in ancient paintings of past dynasties. Every figure, scene and detail in the painting are arranged reasonably, and the relationship between pictures such as density, simplicity, movement, gathering and dispersion is handled properly, so as to be complex but not miscellaneous and not chaotic, which fully shows the painter's profound insight into social life and high artistic accomplishment and expression ability. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a treasure of realistic painting art that we are familiar with. It not only provides us with rich video materials such as commerce, handicrafts, folk customs, architecture, transportation, etc. in the metropolis of the Northern Song Dynasty, but also has strong historical document value. Moreover, the unique composition and artistic image processing of the works also have high artistic research value.

Composition is one of the most important factors in painting creation. In China's ancient painting theory, composition is often called "quotient position". Comparing composition with painstakingly managed commercial operation, we can see that ancient painters in China attached importance to painting composition. Due to the different concepts between China and the West, there are also corresponding differences in the understanding and application of composition between Chinese and Western painters in painting creation, which also leads to different cultural qualities and aesthetic characteristics of this "time-space schema" of painting works. As Zong Baihua, a master of aesthetics in China, said, "The most striking difference between Chinese and western painting is the spatial expression on the screen." In the author's view, the reason why the picture space is different is precisely because of the different composition processing. Influenced by the scientific concept, since the Renaissance, western painting has mainly adopted the "focus perspective" (also known as the central perspective), and painters strive to create a tactile three-dimensional sense and real space by scientific means. Due to the limitation of the "focus perspective" method, the pictures of western paintings have certain limitations, which mostly show temporary moments in life, and the pictures are concentrated, fixed and concise. On the contrary, China's paintings never put science in the first place, and the painter shows the overall feeling of objective things. Painters can use the method of "scattered perspective" to show the contents of different places, different times and different environments in the same picture at the same time, emphasizing the subjective impression of the author. Therefore, the picture has artistic characteristics such as subjectivity, continuity, transcending time and space, and pursuing flatness. Painter Zhang Zeduan's The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a classic example of composition.

Shaping "artistic image" is the main purpose of artistic creation. The artistic image created in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is rich and vivid, which even causes many people to compare the image of the work with the real image now, trying to examine the ancient Bianjing terrain, style and living habits at that time according to the picture. But we can never forget that the law of artistic creation is "from life, higher than life", and the truest images in works of art are all artistic images exaggerated and refined by artists, which are images between "likeness and dissimilarity". The rich scenes, props, characters and so on in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival are not completely true. The continuous pictures, changeable rhythms and numerous images, like movies, all condense the artist's hard creation, which is the deconstruction and reorganization of the real life at that time by the artist's artistic composition method and superb artistic expression skills under the control of emotion.

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is not a sketch of ink-wash opera, and its creation process must follow the rules and methods of large-scale scene painting creation. First of all, we must have the impulse to create topics and ideas. As early as the Tang Dynasty, "meaning is the first" has been regarded as the "operating standard" of painting. Zhang Zeduan "lived in Bianjing for a long time" and "especially loved boating, small bridges and flowing water, and country lanes". Obviously, it is reasonable for him to choose the theme "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" for artistic creation. But life is not equal to art. If such a vast scene is expressed in the form of painting, there must be careful composition arrangements. As early as the Sui Dynasty, Zhan Ziqian's green landscape was "thousands of miles away". At the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, Li Cheng skillfully used the method of scaling thousands of miles to draw thousands of miles of scenery on the scale. Gu Yi's "Han Xizai's Night Banquet" in the Five Dynasties, like a cartoon, uses the principle of "scattered perspective" to unify different life scenes in the same picture, creating a picture composition standard for China's paintings. This traditional method is still widely used up to now, such as the contemporary famous paintings "There are so many mountains and rivers", "The Wan Li Map of the Yellow River" and "The Folk Custom Map of the Yangtze River". Zhang Zeduan must have drawn such a long masterpiece "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" in this way.

Thousands of miles away, according to the needs of the whole picture composition, many local scenes should be deleted, and some scenes should be moved for ten generations, or even the scene image should be recreated artistically according to the needs of the picture or the characteristics of the real scene, so as to achieve the perfect and realistic effect of the picture. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were "Yan Fu painters" who actually sought tolerance. Moreover, the paintings of the ancients were not in the case of cities, States, towns and floods. Based on the discussion that form is integrated, spirit is dynamic and mind is changing, it is scientifically pointed out that painting and map are completely different in dealing with scenery. The analysis of the composition layout of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is based on the integration of form and spirit.

Zhang Zeduan's originality, in terms of content arrangement, is distinct and perfect. "When you open it, you will gather everything together. When you close it, you will connect the whole body." . Rural plains, suburbs, Hongqiao River City and urban areas "have a tendency to concentrate on one thing", "the density is not too crowded, sparse and empty, and nothing can be added or reduced, just like casting. From the countryside to the city, the content is from simple to complex, the brushwork is from sparse to dense, and the artistic conception is from static to dynamic, which forms the keynote of the whole picture. In the arrangement of ups and downs, it can be clearly seen that the author pays special attention to three nodes of content conversion: Liulin, Hongqiao and gatehouse at the intersection of suburban cities, which are the most exciting and eye-catching parts of the picture. Because the author showed many unusual realistic images on the screen by artistic means, it also left many hot spots for future generations.

Arranging Liulin as the center of gravity of the first half of the whole picture is completely the need of composition. The painter painted the willow with superb skills and rich emotions. Several old willows stand upright and staggered, dancing like heroes, overlapping and rubbing to draw old trunks, and dense cables to draw lush foliage. Two rows of willows above the willows rushed out of the picture, and a group of picnickers were still wanting more. The sedan chair is decorated with willows and flowers, and the shirtless people in front of the sedan chair are chasing the galloping horse (or cow) back to the city with fans, full of joy and passion; A group of hikers, dressed neatly and dignified, are leaving the city from the road below Liulin, indicating the hardship and helplessness of running around; There is a tea shop hidden in the Woods, and a child walks hard under the care of the old man. Quiet is full of family fun. The dense brushwork and heavy ink in the willow forest are very eye-catching compared with the sparse forest countryside. One or two pedestrians form a line of sight crossing, and Yangliulin becomes a cross nodule, which becomes the first climax of the picture. But in the three centers of gravity, the weight is the lightest, the ink color is thick but not crowded, interesting but not noisy, and moderately eye-catching but not dazzling.

Hongqiao is located in the center of the picture, which is the core of the three centers of gravity and even the whole picture. Instead of creating a simple and strong visual sense with a large area of heavy colors, the painter adopted a comprehensive method of active scenes, careful arrangement and meticulous detail description to highlight this focus.

The characters in the painting are the most eye-catching, while the moving characters can attract the attention of the viewer. In the position of Hongqiao in the center of picture composition, the painter painted a whole bridge, full of people with various identities and actions, which caused such a heavy visual impact! However, the painter still felt insufficient, and arranged two boats under the bridge to form a cross, which made this part more full and varied. One ship leaned out of the bow under the bridge, and another ship was about to break the waves and cross the Hongqiao. The boatmen were operating nervously, and the scene was extremely thrilling, which attracted people on the bridge and on the shore to stop and watch. Someone is pointing, someone is screaming, and the ship, bridge and shore are connected into a whole of flesh and blood. This is the center of vision. All ships point to this center, and all people, livestock and houses are connected to this center by roads. Coupled with the detailed description of the poor object, this part is vividly portrayed in the whole picture and becomes the most wonderful core.

The last redrawing of the frame is the tower part, which is located between the city center and the river trade area. The painter skillfully used motion and stillness to highlight this part, and broke through the heavens and the earth in composition, making the shape of the tower spectacular. Tiles, cornices, arches, doors and windows, steps, railings, city walls and door openings are carefully drawn with heavy pens, and dense willows and miscellaneous trees surround the tower from the river bank and earth wall, which looks dignified, mysterious and rigorous. This atmosphere is further strengthened by the contrast between the noisy and busy thoroughfare at the foot of the city and the fact that there is only one person on the rostrum doing nothing and looking down.

The treatment of the tower is the need of the overall layout of the picture, which echoes and contrasts with the Liulin in front and the Hongqiao in the middle. Many works of Qing Tu in later generations proved the historical records, and most of them painted the towers as a three-door parallel structure. Many waterside pavilions and galleries were listed on the riverside at the gate, such as weaving tourists, which made this part occupy a large area in the picture frame and the composition was extremely complicated, weakening the prominent position of Hongqiao as the center.

From the above analysis, it can be seen that for the need of overall picture composition, the painter treats the three centers of gravity as artistic symbols. They are like three strong sounds, which make the picture a perfect tune and beautiful ups and downs. Copying the real scene to the screen obviously can't reach the perfection of this symbol, so the image in the work is no longer the real scene in life, but the artistic image created by the artist. They have the characteristics of the transition zone between the suburbs of Bianjing and the city in Song Dynasty, the footbridges and towers of Bianhe River, and their appearance is very similar to the real scenery, but they are by no means the original version of life.

From the painter's handling of the three centers of gravity, we can naturally see how he skillfully handles the countryside, rivers, roads and street scenes outside the center of gravity by using artistic laws. Every part of the picture is not copied from the real thing, but concentrated, refined and artistically recombined. No wonder Mr. Honda of Japan carefully checked the direction of other rivers, the order of roads and street views, etc. And he still doesn't understand where this is in Bianjing. " In order to perfect the composition, the painter can make the Bianhe River turn eastward instead of flowing into the urban area. Pigs, earth walls and magnificent towers can form a city gate, which has the comprehensive image of Bianjing in Song Dynasty. You can use a group of people carrying grain bags to unload the ship to imply the official warehouse area by the river; You can also use Sun Yang store to represent more than 70 main stores; Ten thousand feet representing ten thousand shops ... China traditional culture allows art to have reasonable imagination and fiction. For example, in drama, four soldiers can represent a million troops, and in poetry, there can be exaggeration of "white hair and three thousands of feet" and "Yanshan snowflakes are as big as seats" ... Even in documentary literature like Historical Records, you can see fiction and imagination, such as the intrigue and tense description of the Hongmen banquet. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival also conveys information to us in artistic language. We should not take the painter's pen and ink or the poet's language too dead and narrow-minded. A work of art is created by a bold spirit, so we should try our best to observe and appreciate it with a free and bold spirit.

Of course, there is no doubt that a lot of materials must be used to complete the work of such a grand scene as The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Among them are the feelings and accumulation of the painter's long-term life experience, the impressive image in his heart and the physical sketch of the life scene. When studying many vivid scenes in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, Mr. Takehiro Shinto even seemed to see "Mr. Zhang Zeduan sketching under a willow tree". There are thousands of shapes in life, which are much richer and more vivid than the materials stored in one's mind. Ignoring real life and blindly imagining, the image in artistic works must be conceptual and rigid. Art is higher than life, but it all comes from life. The scene effect of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is very real, vivid and vivid, which shows that although the big structure of the picture is an artistic combination, there should be a shadow of an object behind every specific shape. This is why people can still make almost identical Hongqiao, towers, cars, boats and houses according to the images in the paintings today. The painter skillfully uses artistic creation means to combine the truth of life with the truth of the picture perfectly, which is the secret of the immortal work of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival.

References:

[1] Zong Baihua: Aesthetic Walking, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2006.

[2] Wuguang Shinto: "Painting of Urban Scenery", "Art Garden" 1986 No 2.

[3] Ma Xinyu: "Unreal like real", "Art" 1999 No 5.

[4] Wang Liqun: "A Special Study on the Works of Ancient China Writers", Nankai University Press, 2002.

[5] Chen Shiceng: History of China Painting, Renmin University of China Press, 2004.

[6] Shao Yan: "The History and Aesthetics of China's Painting", Renmin University Press, 2000.

[7] Zhou: "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival and the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival", Henan University Press, 1997 edition.