[posts
in this series are to introduce objects on display in the exhibition "the
Forbidden City: Inside Court of China's Emperor" at Royal Ontario Museum,
March 8 - September 1, 2014; and at Vancouver Art Gallery Oct 18, 2014 - Jan,
2015]
Bird's-Eye
View of the Capital City, Inspired by Emperor Longing's Poems.
京師生春意圖軸
Xu
Yang (徐揚, 1750–after 1766)
Ink
and colour on silk
Qing
dynasty, Qianlong period, 1767
The
Palace Museum, Xin146672
This
large hanging scroll is presented as the first artwork of this exhibition at
the entrance to the Forbidden City exhibition.
During
the New Year season, the snowy imperial capital bustled with life. Shoppers were
busy in the commercial district of the outer city. To the north, layers of
walls, gates, and towers blocked them from the emperor’s palace, the Forbidden
City. The grand architectural organization of the capital reinforced a highly
structured vision of a centralized and expansive rule from within the walls of
the even more structured palace.
Emperor
Qianlong wrote 20 poems about early spring, describing scenes, customs, and
activities of both imperial families and common people—newly spouted grasses,
setting fi recrackers, hanging auspicious omens, ice skating and more. A court
painter put this scene together based on Qianlong’s poems, including them on
the painting itself. Together the poems.
Where
is early spring?
In the playfulness of ice-skating.
Blades
swirl, kicking up frost-flakes,
twirling skaters slide past like whirlwinds,
juggling
so many balls my eyes cannot follow,
effortlessly, no doubt, playing their sport.
I
rewarded them accordingly,
officials raised a cheer.
[For
more, please consider purchasing the exhibition Souvenir guidebook]
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