Northern Qi Scholars Collating Classic Texts

This painting depicts a story in the seventh year of the Emperor Wenxuan’s reign (556 AD), when the emperor ordered Fan Xun and others to compare and collate historical files. Ancient Chinese rulers placed great importance on the collation of ancient texts, because as these books were passed down, they would often pick up errors due to oversights and intentional alteration. This work was once believed to be created by the influential Tang painter Yan Liben, but the prevailing view now is that it should be attributed to Yang Zuhua of the Northern Qi Period.
Viewing this painting from right to left according to the standard viewing order for horizontal scrolls at the time, Scholars of Northern Qi Collating Texts can be divided into three scenes. In the scene at right, there is a red-robed official scanning a document while sitting on a huchuang (a kind of stool introduced from the minority ethnic groups to the Central Plain during the Three Kingdoms Period). He is the central figure of the first scene. To the left of that, at the scroll’s center, four scholars sit on a dais, attended by a group of female servants. Two of the scholars are collating books while the other two seems to be in an argument. This scene of ten people is the crux of the painting. On the far left of the scroll, two grooms lead horses behind a red-robed official of the Han ethnicity.
The dressing styles of characters as well as the furniture and interior décor depicted in the painting, revealing traces of thriving cultural interactions between the Han people and the minority ethnic groups, are in line with historical records. The looks of characters, the oval-shaped faces in particular, also bear similarities with those on the frescos attributed to the same period recently discovered. Therefore, this painting has been used as a reference to studies on the painting style of the Northern Qi Period, during which art witnessed thriving development although the kingdom only lasted a very short period of time, and even had possibly exerted influence on the aesthetics of the following Tang Dynasty according to recent archeological findings.