Scenery of Kaifeng on Qingming Day

The scenery of Kaifeng on Qingming day, also known as 'Along the River During the Qingming Festival', is depicting the city and rural area on Qingming festival in the scroll. This painting is one of the most renowned artwork among Chinese paintings.
Since Northern song dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan painted this theme, it has been produced re-interpretive versions by numerous court artists. Each art work seems to follow the overall composition and the theme of the original but differing in details and technique.

The city depicted in the scroll is supposed to be the Northern Song's capital city, Kaifeng. The river running through in the scroll would be the famous Bian River. Not only ceremonial scenes of festival day, but also everyday life scenes are well depicted in the scroll. Various structures such as the Bridge, restaurants and wine shops of Kaifeng during the Northern Song are easily identified in the scroll.

The Qingming day is a traditional Chinese festival on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. In order to remember ancestors, people do Cleaning and sweeping of graves, worshiping to ancestors, offering food to deceased, and so on.

Scene of sowing seeds

Scene of playing on the swing

Scene of excursions (or visit to ancestral tombs)

The hustle and bustle of Kaifeng (various shops are depicted in the scroll)

Antique shop

Furniture shop

Clothing shop & umbrella shop

The hustle and bustle of Kaifeng (Brawling in the street)

Scene of telling someone’s fortune by Physiognomy