Zhao Ji listens to the piano picture axis

[Zhao Ji’s Music Picture Axis]

Music Picture Axis, Song Dynasty, Zhao Ji’s painting, silk edition, color setting, 147.2 cm vertically and 51.3 cm horizontally
This picture depicts the scene of listening to the piano in the elegant collection of bureaucrats and nobles. The heroine wears a black robe, sits in the middle, and plays the piano with concentration. Two court officials sitting on the pier in front of them sit and listen to each other. The man in the green robe on the left looks up with the sleeve, and the man in the red robe on the right holds the fan and lowers his head. The two people sit quietly, as if they are being touched by the stirring strings, and are completely intoxicated with the sound of the piano. The blue-shirted boy who stood with a forked hand stared at the main character who played the strings. Taking the sound of the piano as the theme, the author skillfully portrays the artistic conception of “silence is better than sound at this time”. The background of the picture is simple, such as the covered pine and swaying green bamboo set off the elegant and refined environment of the garden, while the smoker with curling cigarette smoke on several tables and the ancient tripod with different flowers planted on the exquisite stone together with the elegant piano sound create a quiet atmosphere
At the top of the picture is a seven-character quatrain written by the Prime Minister Cai Jing, and at the top of the right is a thin gold script written by Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, with the words “Listening to the piano”
The composition of the work is simple and clean, the figure’s behavior and appearance are vivid and vivid, the clothing pattern line drawing is strong and slightly combative, the tree stone tool description is exquisite but not rigid, the color is thick and does not lose clear and beautiful, which is the representative work of the court figure painting in the Song Dynasty
Because of the title and inscription of Huizong in this painting, the work was once considered to be painted by Zhao Ji. Later, after the research of scholars, this painting was painted by the painter of Xuanhe Academy of Painting, depicting the music of Huizong in Zhao Ji’s palace, and it was Zhao Ji who played the piano in the picture.