Valerie Hansen Walks You Through the Qingming Scroll

Summary

Valerie Hansen, a Chinese history professor at Yale, takes viewers on an insightful journey through the Qingming Scroll, a masterpiece of traditional Chinese art. She challenges the common translation of the scroll's title, advocating for 'Peace Reigns Over the River' instead. Delving into the scroll's content, Hansen describes the vivid and bustling scenes of rural and urban life depicted in this historical artwork, which likely dates back to around 1000 AD. The scroll is an idealized representation, showcasing the commerce, community, and artistry of the Song Dynasty, with noticeable omissions of societal imperfections, suggesting it was intended to praise imperial rule.

Highlights

• Valerie Hansen introduces the Qingming Scroll, challenging traditional interpretations of its title. 🎨
• The scroll dates back to before 1186, possibly around the year 1000, and is held at the Beijing Palace Museum. 🏛️
• Hansen describes the process of viewing the scroll inch by inch, as opposed to seeing it laid out in full in a museum. 🖼️
• The scroll begins in a rural setting, gradually leading the viewer towards a bustling city scene. 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️
• A dramatic scene features a boat in distress under a rainbow bridge, illustrating advanced Chinese nautical engineering. 🚤
• The scroll highlights a bustling marketplace and interaction among people, showcasing commerce and daily life. 🏪
• There are few women depicted, reflecting traditional views on gender roles during the Song Dynasty. 🚻
• Hansen points out the absence of sickness and poverty, emphasizing the scroll’s idealized representation of society. 🌟

Key Takeaways

• Valerie Hansen offers a unique perspective on the Qingming Scroll, arguing for a translation that emphasizes peace and harmony. 🕊️
• The scroll provides a detailed snapshot of life during the Song Dynasty, capturing the essence of rural and urban scenes. 🏞️
• Despite depicting a vibrant society, the scroll omits signs of poverty or distress, suggesting an idealized vision of the time. 🌟
• The Qingming Scroll is a testament to Chinese artistry, with intricate details and architectural wonders like the famous rainbow bridge. 🌈
• The scroll possibly served as a tribute to the emperor, showcasing the prosperity and peace under his rule. 👑

Overview

Valerie Hansen, a renowned Chinese history professor at Yale, captivates viewers in her video by unveiling the wonders of the Qingming Scroll, a significant piece of Chinese art. Rather than subscribing to the usual translation, she proposes a new interpretation of the title as 'Peace Reigns Over the River,' attributing a deeper cultural and historical understanding to the work.

The Qingming Scroll is more than just a painting; it is a window into the Song Dynasty, dating back to around 1000 AD. Hansen describes the detailed scenes beautifully painted on the scroll, including peaceful rural landscapes transitioning into vibrant city life. She highlights extraordinary elements like the rainbow bridge and movable rudders on boats, showcasing the era's technical advancements.

Despite its detailed portrayal of societal life, the scroll omits less desirable aspects such as poverty and illness, leading Hansen to surmise it as an idealized depiction meant to flatter the ruling emperor. In this artwork, the absence of social issues suggests a utopian vision, likely crafted to honor and praise the emperor's harmonious governance.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to the Qingming Scroll by Valerie Hansen In this chapter, Valerie Hansen, a Chinese history professor at Yale, introduces the Qingming Scroll. She discusses the Chinese title of the scroll, commonly translated as 'Going Up River During the Qingming Festival,' and argues for a different translation: 'Peace Reigns Over the River and the Painting.'
• 01:00 - 02:00: Discussing the Historical Context and Painting Style The chapter discusses the historical context and style of a particular painting, believed to be created before 1186. This is supported by a document, a colophon, dating from 1186, which refers to the painting. It is likely painted around the year 1000, a view supported by Jonathan Haye, a Chinese art history professor at NYU. The scroll is approximately 18 yards long and reflects a typical presentation in museums.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Examining the Beginning of the Qingming Scroll Chinese scrolls, including the Qingming Scroll, are often displayed under glass so viewers can see large sections at once. Historically, people viewed them by slowly moving the scroll within their hands inch by inch.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Insights into the Scroll's Depiction of Rural Life The chapter discusses a scroll that depicts rural life, with the original located at the Beijing Palace Museum. The narrator has seen the original but owns a reproduction, noting slight color differences. The portion of the scroll described includes trees at the beginning.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Observations of Seasonal and Daily Life Indicators The chapter begins with descriptions of a rural scene, setting the stage outside in the countryside. Two woodsmen are leading a procession of donkeys along a path. The setting hints at a transition towards a city, though it is not explicitly mentioned at this point. The imagery of greener new leaves suggests a seasonal change, capturing the essence of movement and transition in both time and space.
• 05:00 - 06:00: The Transition from Countryside to Urban Scenes The chapter, titled 'The Transition from Countryside to Urban Scenes,' describes the viewing experience of a hand scroll painting, starting from a rural setting. The scene depicted in the painting is likely set in early spring, characterized by greenery, with a farmhouse where most inhabitants appear to be asleep at this early hour.
• 06:00 - 07:00: The Arrival at and Activities Surrounding the River The chapter describes an early morning journey through a rural area with few people around. It mentions passing by houses and trees, specifically focusing on the technique of pollarding used on trees, a method practiced by the Chinese.
• 07:00 - 08:00: Architectural and Ship Engineering Details The chapter discusses the architectural and engineering elements that contribute to shoreline reinforcement, such as the deepening roots of certain plants. It transitions into observing a group of people, highlighting a cultural observation involving the use of a sedan chair (also known as a palanquin), an important aspect of historical and social movement. The description details how these are carried by individuals, showcasing elements of human transport engineering and traditional practices within societies.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Understanding the Dramatic Scene at the Bridge The chapter delves into the interpretation of a scene at a bridge, possibly depicted in a painting referred to as 'ching ming'. It explores the significance of certain elements like a sedan chair surrounded by brooms and the potential link to the Qingming Festival, a grave-sweeping holiday in early April. The discussion highlights the debate over whether the painting represents this specific festival due to its title.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Exploring Commerce and Daily Life Within the City The chapter titled 'Exploring Commerce and Daily Life Within the City' delves into the interpretations of a specific painting. Many people believe the painting depicts the Ching Ming Festival, however, the discussion clarifies that 'Ching Ming' actually refers to peace and harmony. The chapter reveals that the title has been traditionally linked to the painting, but there is no certainty about what the painter originally intended to convey or even what they named it.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Depictions of Inhabitants and Daily Activities The chapter titled 'Depictions of Inhabitants and Daily Activities' describes a painting observed during a procession. Despite some damage making parts of the painting unclear, key elements are described. A notable feature shows two women riding donkeys with male servants leading them on a path. The text emphasizes observations and interpretations of these everyday scenes from the artwork.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Arriving at the City Gate and Its Significance The chapter discusses evidence that identifies certain figures in ancient paintings as women. The presence of headdresses similar to those worn by women in other paintings where they are depicted as suckling children supports this identification. Additionally, the scroll reveals signs that a day is beginning in the depicted scene, including a grandparent playing with a grandchild, suggesting normal daily life activities.
• 12:00 - 13:00: Life Inside the City Walls The chapter 'Life Inside the City Walls' describes a scene that seems to be taking place at dawn inside a city, possibly in an early morning setting. The setting appears to be a shop where people are having breakfast. The observation of a dirt path and arrival at a river serve as evidence of the morning, indicating a new day beginning inside the city. This introduction sets the stage for exploring the everyday life and the rhythm of the city as the inhabitants prepare for their day.
• 13:00 - 14:00: Discussion on the Artistic and Cultural Aspects The chapter titled 'Discussion on the Artistic and Cultural Aspects' delves into an early morning scene symbolized by the raising of a pole with flags. The narrative sets up an exploration of professions and roles within the artwork, focusing on a figure who, from afar, appears to be a beggar. However, upon closer inspection, it is more likely that he is a fortune teller or a Taoist. The text describes an interaction, possibly a handshake, happening in the morning, and continues to describe the setting with a focus on a dirt path, indicating a continuation or journey.
• 14:00 - 15:00: Three Critical Questions about the Scroll The chapter discusses the beginning of a river painting that features grain boats. The work is attributed to John Zedwan, who is renowned for his expertise in 'Chief Hua' painting, a style focused on creating detailed architectural representations of buildings and boats. This painting includes numerous intricate details.

Valerie Hansen Walks You Through the Qingming Scroll Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hi i'm valerie hanson i teach chinese history at yale and uh in this youtube youtube video uh i want to introduce the ching-ming scroll the chinese title of the scroll is the qingming and it's often translated as the going up river during the qingling festival but i'll explain to you why i think the translation of the title should be peace reigns over the river and the painting
• 00:30 - 01:00 was made sometime before 1186 we know that because there's a document a colophon reaction to the painting dated 1186 so we know the painting was made before that probably it was painted around the year 1000 this is the view of jonathan haye who teaches chinese art history at nyu the uh scroll i would say the scroll was about 18 yards long and usually when you go into a museum
• 01:00 - 01:30 the scrolls chinese scrolls are always laid out under a glass a glass so that you can see the entire thing at once or a large section of it but when people looked at them in the past they just looked at them the way i have it here where they could move the scroll inch by inch just using their left and right hands and now we're going to start having a look at the scroll so we're we're looking at the uh a reproduction
• 01:30 - 02:00 of the tingling scroll the the real scroll is in the beijing palace museum and it's on display sometimes in the fall i've seen it what the real thing once this is a reproduction i bought about 20 years ago in beijing for about 10 it's fairly accurate some of the colors are a little bit different in the beginning of the scroll you can see there are some trees here and in the original painting the
• 02:00 - 02:30 the new leaves are greener the so we're gonna and what we see in this opening frame is we're outside well we're going we're on our way to a city we don't know that yet we just have a rural scene uh it's the countryside and we have uh two woodman woodman leaving leading a procession of donkeys along this path and they're about to turn and go here and bring us into the whole scroll
• 02:30 - 03:00 so we're moving along and this is the way that somebody would look at a hand scroll and we are passing it's so in terms of the time of year uh it as i said the trees look a little greener in the original it's probably early spring and we've got here a farmhouse and nobody's up yet it's probably uh somebody's up there
• 03:00 - 03:30 it's probably early in the morning and we're moving along we've passed some more houses more trees it's we're in a rural a rural uh environment not many people around and then these trees here you can see that they have the branches have been cut and this is a technique called pollarding which the chinese use to make the tree
• 03:30 - 04:00 roots grow deeper and then to reinforce the shore so we're moving along still ah and then this is our first group of people that we see at the top here coming in from and then in this direction and then going here and they're carrying this is called a sedan chair it's also called a palanquin but it's a chair that someone can sit in
• 04:00 - 04:30 some we'll see some we'll see a lot of these in the scroll and sometimes a woman is sitting in them and this one around um the sedan chair are some brooms and as i said when i was talking about the translation of the title of the painting some people think that this painting shows the qingming festival because the name of the painting is ching ming and then shanghatu is means going upriver the question is ching ming and what ching ming means and there is a holiday a grave sweeping holiday in early april
• 04:30 - 05:00 and people think that some many people think that that's what this painting shows i think ching ming doesn't mean ching wing festival it means peace reigns it means the peace and um basically just peace and harmony um and that that's what the painter meant we don't even know what the painter called this painting actually this is a title that has come down and linked by tradition to the painting but we we don't know the
• 05:00 - 05:30 original title of the painting so we're moving along and we see so we've got that procession of people coming in this is one place here there someone is running after something and the painting is there's a spot of damage so we don't know what's going on um in the foreground here we've got two women and they're riding on donkeys and then they're led by servants male servants who are leading them along the path and we know that they're women because
• 05:30 - 06:00 their headdresses are appear in other paintings of women suckling children so we can be positive that they're women and now as we move along in the scroll we see some signs of that the day is beginning the we've got here a grandparent playing with a grandchild and here we've got someone putting
• 06:00 - 06:30 clothes on could be taking them off but everything else suggests that it's dawn this is some kind of a shop there's some tables here and some people maybe they're having breakfast and we've been walking on a dirt path and then at this point where we arrive at a river here and this this is our best evidence that it's the morning because this shop is
• 06:30 - 07:00 putting up a pole with flags on it and that's the indication that it's early morning this figure here might be a beggar like from a distance it might look like a beggar but he's holding a staff and it seems more likely that he's a fortune teller or a taoist and that this is someone shaking his hand uh in the morning and then here we so we've got the the dirt path continuing there but we've
• 07:00 - 07:30 also got the river starting and we have these boats these are grain boats and they're the the painter who made this painting um who uh the painting is attributed to john zedwan we have descriptions of him saying that he excelled in a chief hua painting which is um it's a school of painting that specializes in making buildings and boats it's like architectural painting and he's included a lot of details on
• 07:30 - 08:00 the boat so we can see here this is a rudder that goes up and down it's a movable rudder and this was a so you could when you were in shallow water you could lift the rudder up and this was a chinese innovation that spread from china through the islamic world and arrives in europe and these boats are carrying grain and we can see here there's this gangway and there's another one here and then this person is carrying the grain off the boat and everyone there they're
• 08:00 - 08:30 piling the workers are piling the grain here and this man looks like he may be an official he's sitting down and one of the clues to wealth is how long people's robes are the laborers are wearing short like shorts or their legs are uncovered he's got his his legs are entirely covered and he's sitting gesturing to the workers telling them what to do with the grain so it's it's it's morning and we're
• 08:30 - 09:00 moving along and the we've got the path the dirt path continuing up here and we have the river coming in and we see here moving along we have more boats more removable rudders this is the a house or it may be an inn with a window uh it's got we've got a decorative structure here and this is uh something that the
• 09:00 - 09:30 chinese did on holidays was build these decorative structures and this is evidence for people who think that this shows the chimping squirrel so we're moving along and these people live on these boats these are houseboats we can see sometimes we can see the people in the house boats just moving along and the we have a kind of parallel set of scenes up here uh like a mini
• 09:30 - 10:00 city view here is one of the occupants of the houseboat and this is i think a woman who's inside and she's looking out on the river and the boat is being pulled up being pulled in this direction so the current seems to run in this direction then they've tied a rope
• 10:00 - 10:30 to the mass we'll follow that in a second and we've got another woman looking out here and then on the opposite side of the bank we have this is a woman pouring a bucket of water out and we know she lives on this boat because this is her laundry and so uh she's uh and i was gonna say we can conclude she's much less wealthy than the women who are living in these houseboats
• 10:30 - 11:00 so we're moving along and now we get our first picture of this kind of a boat in this painting these men are all rowing a single ore it's attached to the one end of a boat and that's how they're moving up the river so and then here we saw that mast let's i'll just go back for a second and show you we have the mast here with this
• 11:00 - 11:30 string and now we can follow this string and it's go moving no one is pulling the string and then here we've got the first laborer pulling the boat up the shore so we're uh moving up the river and we know we've been we've been shown this very unusual kind of boat with an oar at probably the stern now we can see the
• 11:30 - 12:00 whole boat and this is probably the back of the boat the stern and then this is the front of the boat and this boat is being pulled up the boat that had the mast and then we've got another boat at the top of the frame so we're moving we're going upriver just as the title of the painting leads us to believe and now we're arriving at the center of the scroll we can see another pollarded tree here
• 12:00 - 12:30 some more of these movable rudders and here's an inn this painting i told you dates to around the year one thousand uh people used to a lot of people say that restaurants start in paris in the 18th century but it's clear and that they've already um in full force this is in the sun dynasty and china's sung dynasty starts in 960. so we're moving along and now we get to the dramatic high point of the painting
• 12:30 - 13:00 this boat has arrived at the bridge and to get under the bridge it has to lower its mast so this is not a sign of distress that's the normal thing to get under the bridge but the boat actually is in trouble and we can see that because the when we unroll we can see that the men on the boat all of these men are have their hands
• 13:00 - 13:30 out like they're trying to catch a rope or a string or a lead and people on the bridge it's very hard to see but they are actually tossing a piece of rope down to the people on this boat now what's happened well what's happened is that the boat was originally connected to this side of the river and the rope has snapped so this is a boat that's actually in distress and there's a chance right it's it's disconnected and you
• 13:30 - 14:00 the viewer is thinking oh no is there going to be some kind of a crash that this boat is out of control and then the current is going to push it down in this direction so let's just hold on this is suspense this is suspense in the year 1000 where we don't know what's going to happen the bridge itself is a wonder the chinese called these rainbow bridges so architectural wonder and this painting because of the school of art that the artist was in that
• 14:00 - 14:30 we can see exactly how the bridge was designed and there was a nova show a while ago where they used this painting as basically a blueprint to make the bridge a bridge just like this and they succeeded so we've got oh and then here's the suspense this boat is out of control and then here we've got an oar just like the oar we saw uh coming up river in that previous boat we've got an ore peeking out so we know that there's a boat
• 14:30 - 15:00 on this side of the river and we wonder what is going to happen is this this boat is out of control what's going to happen and all the people on top of the bridge are wondering exactly the same thing so we're moving along and we're trying to find out what's going to happen we have now a scene of the bridge where we can see all the activity on the bridge and we it's interesting the bridge we've got a man on horseback and he's confronting a sedan chair
• 15:00 - 15:30 and there's a kind of a standoff the reason there's a standoff is that there's no room for the two to pass side by side somebody has to give way and the reason there's no room is that there are so many shops on the two sides of the bridge and these are some of these shops a lot of these shops are food stands like here we can see people sitting around and there are bowls so they're having maybe a bowl of noodles uh here if we keep going a little bit
• 15:30 - 16:00 on the bridge we can see that this is a a shop where the shop keeper has put all of his or the stand owner has put all of his goods on the ground for people to see and as a kind of hardware store he's got some scissors you can see on the the original is uh this was painted on silk and um it's painted is the the level of detail is just extraordinary the copy is a little blurrier than the original so we've got our suspense of the boat
• 16:00 - 16:30 coming under the bridge out of control and ore on the other side and then when we get through the bridge when we move along we can see that the boat that the oar is connected to has stopped so they can wait and wait for the situation to resolve with the other boat so there's not going to be an accident so we find out few there's no accident the crisis is averted
• 16:30 - 17:00 and we keep moving up i was going to say some people think that it's hotter it's no longer early in the morning that maybe it's around noon time when we're here on the bridge people are selling cool drinks and some of the workers are wearing very little on top just um they're uh because maybe because they're it's hot and they're working so hard so we get through the bridge
• 17:00 - 17:30 here's the boat and we're still now following the water and we've got our path up upriver and now we get to another one of these ceremonial structures and this is for some kind of a festival and here we've got it's it's labeled and it says um jiao dian which means foot store in in modern chinese we would say fundin it's a branch it's a branch of a store we're going to see the main store later
• 17:30 - 18:00 and this is actually the word that people used for a local branch of the liquor monopoly so it's a wine shop uh and so we're moving along and we can see ah here we can see that looks like a grandmother is buying she has a grandchild with her looks like she's buying a small toy from a toy vendor so we're moving along and we've passed the ceremonial structure and here
• 18:00 - 18:30 the river we're going to say goodbye to the river and the river is going to go out of the frame of the painting and we're going to focus now on the land the land route in we see some more houseboats here and here's some people sitting the painting is painted from the vantage point of somebody it's kind of on the second or third floor looking in at these dwellings
• 18:30 - 19:00 so we get here and we've got a restaurant and we can see that there's more people this is we're coming up on a very interesting street where it starts here so the this is the route bringing us in and then we have an intersection and this street which is like a reverse s this is a moving truck it's kind of the u-haul a truck of the sun dynasty and it's pulling possessions maybe someone is moving house
• 19:00 - 19:30 and we've got on the street we've got this is a shop where they make wheels we can see that because they've got the um well they have baskets there and they have wood lying on the ground here's somebody sitting on the ground talking it may be a storyteller so maybe somebody who's telling the people standing around some kind of a story we have some pack animals coming in and then we're still moving along
• 19:30 - 20:00 and we've got another one of these moving trucks and then here we've got a woman attendant coming to the sedan chair probably bringing food to a woman living there here's a carpenter carrying a saw so we're moving along and we're um you know i often ask students when do we get to the city this feels
• 20:00 - 20:30 like a city we've got a lot of shops it's fairly crowded we've got restaurants here's a fortune teller the sign is the shop is labeled this is interesting this is this wall has pieces of tile stuck into the top it's probably a jail and outside the jail the guards are all dozing and there's nobody inside the jail remember we're in a kind of ideal world and so the jail of course
• 20:30 - 21:00 the jail is empty so we're moving along and now just following that path and we go past the jail and we see here this is a woman because she's wearing a hat like we've seen other women wearing and the um that's uh we've got another people pulling uh pulling these carts loaded with their possessions here's a
• 21:00 - 21:30 little group of stands uh food stands again for people's backs they're probably sitting and eating a bowl of noodles now we get to a new we'll get to some water well we don't we're not on the water we just have a bridge crossing the water and we come and now whenever i ask my students when we get to the city almost all of
• 21:30 - 22:00 the students who know anything about china say well this has to be the city because this is the gate this is the city gate and one of the things that's interesting is that in the period before the song in the tang dynasty so in the period from let's say roughly 600 to 900 the shopping districts were limited to one one part of the city and they opened at noon and they shut at dusk and it's clear from everything we've
• 22:00 - 22:30 seen in this painting so far that that's not the case in the sun commerce is exploded outside of the city walls we see all we've seen so many transactions and so much commerce taking place so we come in and now the song dynasty was a period when there was pretty much constant threat of invasion from the north and you would expect that the city would be heavily guarded but you get here and it's just like the jail that there's nobody on top of
• 22:30 - 23:00 the wall it's completely empty ah there's one person here and he's looking not at the outside of the city but at the interior of the city he looks like he's a tourist so this is again evidence for the painting the meaning of the painting's title being peace reigns in the city there's absolutely no sense of an invading any threat of invasion ah now coming out of the gate we have a camel we've got camels here this tells us
• 23:00 - 23:30 we're in north china there were camels carrying goods in beijing even in the 1930s one of my professors used to tell us about that so that and where this gate has no writing on it which is interesting if it was a real city gate it would have a name of a gate and i think the reason it has no writing on it that we'd expect like a plaque up here or maybe a plaque here with some writing on it or here is that the artist
• 23:30 - 24:00 wanted to keep the city anonymous he's not he doesn't want this to be a specific place so we come into the city the city wall is basically unguarded and things are so relaxed that a barber has opened up his barber shop at the foot of the wall so he um we're coming in now we're through the gate and now we're in uh we see the biggest building we're gonna see um in the city here
• 24:00 - 24:30 uh but here we see this uh an official this is a looks a classic chinese official he's wearing this black hat that's anyone wearing a hat like that is an official or an official wannabe and he's looking and someone has come into the city carrying these goods and the official is assessing some kind of tax on those goods the camels are leaving this camel's very small camel train is going through the gate now we come in and we see more of the building here
• 24:30 - 25:00 here this looks like a shop where they're selling bows and arrows and they've this man is testing the bow to see if he can shoot it here's a character that just means fragrant or aromatic so this is one of the few signs in the painting of foreign trade or anything foreign that most of the aromatics that the sun imported they imported from southeast asia we've got another sedan chair here we've got a group of women
• 25:00 - 25:30 about three or four women and they're clustered around a basket holding broom so that may be linked to the ching-wing scroll now here we have a sign on the big building and it says the main branch zhang din so before we had jiao den the foot branch or the the branch store now this is the main store of the monopoly the wine monopoly and people can buy wine here
• 25:30 - 26:00 but this it's not this whole shop it's an inn and we've got customers um on the top on the second floor um eating and drinking and the um there are other shops here too we've got this tells us that it's this says the the lamb shop of the sun family and we have somebody here who might also be a storyteller they're a bunch of people clustered around
• 26:00 - 26:30 so we're now downtown we're inside the city for sure and we have a large kind of public square here it's an intersection here we've got a variety of people that we haven't seen before these are taoist priests we know that from their headdresses these are this is a buddhist monk with a shaved head this is an interesting shop it's labeled and it tells us that it's the high quality front and it's run by the leo family
• 26:30 - 27:00 so the leo family's high quality and then it has three names of wood so aloes wood which was a major import from southeast asia we sometimes call it eagle wood it's a wood i don't think any american is very familiar with um sandalwood and then they also have frankincense which uh is a was a resin collected from trees like pine resin and very fragrant especially when it was burnt so we're coming in and we see this
• 27:00 - 27:30 intersection and this is a woman here we've she's got a braid and she's we know that her clothes look like um other women's clothes and uh we're coming in and seeing more we're getting we're almost at the end of the painting this is here is a toy seller he's got a frame and an umbrella and then dangling from the umbrella are lots of toys and i know that because we have other paintings of
• 27:30 - 28:00 toy toy merchants in the sun this is a water shop it's a well where you could come it might not they may not be selling it they're probably collecting some kind of fee for the right to come and get water there um this shop here has a chinese character gia which uh is the um happens to be the the first half of the word for revolution but in here it marks a pawn shop and so people are coming here and they're pawning the goods that they want to get cash for
• 28:00 - 28:30 now here we have this figure it's quite different from everybody else he's wearing a very unusual hat and he's about to go into the painting and see everything that we've already seen and so some people think it's the artists uh put john zedwan made a self-portrait of himself it's but he's and i remember one of my former colleagues dick barnhart calling him the eye of the painting because he's going to see everything we've seen
• 28:30 - 29:00 and here we've got a shop with three women in it and it's funny the writing on the shop says it's the house of a low official but it's actually a doctor shop the women have come to consult about some kind of medical problem and now we ah all of a sudden the painting stops and it's right after this eye of the painting and there's a debate among scholars about whether or not this is really
• 29:00 - 29:30 the beginning um excuse me the end of the painting whether it possibly went on the uh other we have later versions of the changing scroll and they continue into a palace district so a lot of people think there must have been uh another section of the painting showing the palace i i happen to think this is the end of the painting there's no way to know for sure i remember one of my one of the reasons i think that is that the bridge we saw is exactly halfway in the painting that
• 29:30 - 30:00 exists so it makes perfect sense that we've got a symmetrical painting with two halves of the bridge uh but i remember talking to a art historian in china who said no no you could have this could be half of the painting and then up to here and then we could have another half just the same so we won't really uh know that but we've now um this is this is the world that the painting shows and uh it's a world that uh is just filled with life which
• 30:00 - 30:30 is why this is such a masterpiece of chinese art now we've looked at the whole scroll and there are three questions that i always ask my students about the scroll the first one is what is the artist's attitude towards commerce and now that you've seen the whole scroll i think you'll agree that the artist has a very positive attitude towards commerce in traditional china so before the sung dynasty and and some
• 30:30 - 31:00 people would argue uh during the sun dynasty uh that the literati looked down on commerce but this painter obviously has affection for stores and people buying and selling things and people buying things from vendors and part of what makes the whole society in the scroll so vivid is the active commercial life second question
• 31:00 - 31:30 is uh about the gender balance in the scroll how many women and how many men are shown in the scroll and the answer unless you've been keeping track as we've looked through the scroll is that there are about fewer than 20 women and about 700 over 700 men now this is not the way life was at the time this is a very idealized depiction
• 31:30 - 32:00 this is why i think the squirrels should be called peace reigns over the river and the one of the ideals in traditional chinese society was that women should stay inside so we the scroll doesn't show very many women outside actually of those 20 women many of them are inside but i think if we could go back in time and visit a chinese city that we would see many more women outside and then the third question is my
• 32:00 - 32:30 favorite question for humanists is what did the artists leave out so we've seen this whole city and all of these different activities that the artist has shown but what what did we not see in the scroll well we never saw anyone who was sick or maimed or any beggars we never saw anybody who was suffering in any way we didn't see any dirt this
• 32:30 - 33:00 is a pretty big city i think it's an imaginary city so i don't think it's any specific city but a city this big you would expect to have piles of garbage a piles of discarded fruit rinds or food waste by the market there's no garbage shown anywhere in the squirrel there's no poverty i said that already there's no illness and that i think tells us something very
• 33:00 - 33:30 important about the scroll that this is a depiction of an idealized city and where the normal social problems don't exist and i think that's why many people including myself think it was painted for an imperial patron most likely the emperor as basically in praise of his beneficent rule
• 33:30 - 34:00 thank you