Li Song Qiantang Tidal View Scroll

[Li Song Qiantang Tide Viewing Map Volume]

Qiantang Tide Viewing Map Volume, Southern Song Dynasty, painted by Li Song, silk version, color setting, 17.4 cm vertically and 83 cm horizontally
This picture has no print. There are poems written by Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty in the front and back of the poem, and postscripts written by Zhang Renjin and Yang Ji in the back. The collection has the seals of Xiang Zijing, Qing Neifu and Liang Qingbiao
Li Song, a painter who used to be a carpenter when he was young, is an expert at painting architecture. The “Moonlight View of the Tide” page painted by Li Song in the collection of the Taipei Palace Museum is a faithful portrait of the style and detail characteristics of the official architecture of the Southern Song Dynasty, while this volume has the emotional color of lyricism, showing another architectural style of Li Song
Every year from August 16 to 18 of the lunar calendar is the big tide period of the Qiantang River in Zhejiang. Since the Southern Song Dynasty moved its capital to Lin’an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province), tide watching has become an annual grand event in Lin’an. At that time, the sea water went up against the river along the trumpet-shaped Qiantang River mouth, like “the snowy mountains in the jade region, coming from the sky, loud as thunder, shocking and shooting, swallowing the sky and fertile the sun, and powerful”
This picture shows not only the surging river, but also the capital city of Lin’an, which is written as “Take off Pavilion on the River within the Great Wall”. It is intriguing that the author did not reproduce the majestic splendor of the royal palace, the majestic neatness of Lin’an City, and the bustling enthusiasm of the “annual tide watching music” with his exquisite and subtle expression techniques, but only wrote a piece of half-exposed tiles in a simple way that loomed in the misty shadow of the trees. The broad open space of the three walls in the dense forest may be the palace of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the artistic conception is quite empty. The author’s activities took place at a time of turmoil in the Southern Song Dynasty, when the country was facing internal and external problems, and the small imperial court was addicted to the extravagance of “opening the imperial palace on the Qiantang River” and “watching the autumn tide and forgetting to leave”. As a painter, Li Songzhong, who was waiting for the imperial edict and was able to serve the monarch, seemed to have twists and turns in the picture.