Picture scroll of Zhan Ziqian’s spring outing

[Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Festival Scroll]

The Spring Festival Scroll, Sui Dynasty, Zhan Ziqian’s work, silk, color, vertical 43 cm, horizontal 80.5 cm
This is a landscape painting, depicting people’s “outing” by the water in the mountains in the sunny and spring seasons. The whole painting is dominated by natural scenery, with figures interspersed. A winding path by the lake stretches into the quiet valley. People either ride horses or walk along the way to enjoy the scenic spots of green mountains, green waters and flowers. On the sparkling lake, a yacht ripples slowly, and the women sitting on the boat seem to be intoxicated by the surrounding scenery. There are several Buddhist temples built between the hillside and the col, which are very quiet and fascinating
The painter uses thin and powerful lines to draw the outline of the object image. Although the figure is as small as a bean, it is meticulous and the shape is complete. The mountains, rocks and trees are only painted with lines. You can see the changes in the weight, thickness, cadence and transition of the strokes, but you haven’t seen the chapping technique in the paintings after the Tang Dynasty
The color of the work is rich and thick. The mountains, rocks and trees are colored with the mineral blue and green pigments, with the green color as the main tone, and the buildings, people and horses are colored in red and white, which is both unified and harmonious, and full of changes. Bright colors also better set off the vigorous spring atmosphere of the great rivers and mountains
The Spring Festival Tour has always been regarded as the work of Zhan Ziqian, a painter of the Sui Dynasty, representing the face of early Chinese landscape painting. In recent years, scholars have put forward different views on the author and era of this work, which has caused discussion.