Joyful Celebration at the New Year (歲朝歡慶圖), by the Qing dynasty painter Yao Wenhan, depicts the scene of a New Year celebration and family reunion in the traditional society of former times. The architecture incorporates the Western concept of perspective, and the columns of the gallery are shaded to convey a sense of three dimensions. The figures move with distinct life, and the painting brims with the warm atmosphere of the New Year.
Yao Wenhan’s realistic, archaizing style and his skill in Daoist and Buddhist images
Yao Wenhan, styled Zhuoting, has no recorded dates of birth or death. He served in the inner court as a painter during the Qianlong reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing dynasty, active roughly between 1736 and 1795.
Record of Academy Paintings of the Present Dynasty (國朝院畫錄), the catalogue of Qing court painting compiled by the Qing scholar Hu Jing, records that Yao Wenhan was skilled at figures and equally accomplished at Daoist and Buddhist images. His brushwork was fine and orderly and his manner realistic and archaizing. He served at the Qing court for more than forty years and was good at painting Buddhist and Daoist figures, landscapes, and ruled-line architectural subjects.
Traditional Chinese seasonal and auspicious paintings: the ‘sui zhao tu’
“Sui zhao” (歲朝) means the beginning of the year — that is, the first day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar. Since ancient times the New Year has been the traditional festival that Chinese people value most highly, when every household sweeps away the old and brings in the new, gathers for reunion and offers New Year greetings, and welcomes a new outlook.
The subject of the “sui zhao tu” (歲朝圖) first appeared in the court painting academy of the Song dynasty and was handed down from one generation to the next thereafter. Its content falls into two broad categories: scenes depicting various celebratory activities and New Year customs, and depictions of elegant objects carrying auspicious symbolism, such as flowers in vases, antiques, and vegetables and fruit. Paintings of the latter kind are for the most part called “sui zhao qing gong tu” (歲朝清供圖), or pure offerings for the New Year.
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‘Joyful Celebration at the New Year’ depicts in fine detail a prosperous household celebrating the New Year
Joyful Celebration at the New Year is in ink and color on paper, 82.4 centimeters high and 55 centimeters wide. On the bare rock at the lower left is written “Respectfully painted by your servant Yao Wenhan.” It is now held in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Yao Wenhan adopts a bird’s-eye viewpoint to paint in fine detail the scene of a prosperous household celebrating the New Year. First, the viewer is drawn to a group of innocent and endearing children in the courtyard. The New Year is the happiest time for children, and they play to their hearts’ content — setting off firecrackers, beating gongs and drums, blowing the sheng and clapping wooden clappers, working a string puppet — cheerful and full of vitality.
Next, as the gaze moves toward the upper part of the picture, the elders of the household sit upright in the main hall, greeting one another and chatting with great delight; the young servants shuttle back and forth, busy with their attendance, some standing by holding wine pots, others carrying over cakes and fruit; the women in the rear courtyard are in the kitchen preparing wine and food, readying delicacies and dishes; and in the distance, on the upper storey, the menservants work together to hang lanterns and colored decorations and to put up the large lanterns that welcome the spring.
In addition, a household servant is adding fresh firewood to the great brazier in the courtyard, in which pine branches and sesame stalks are burning; the main hall has been set with a large standing screen of graceful and refined flowers of the four seasons as a backdrop, and beside it are placed several large vases of peonies, which signify wealth and good fortune. The house is filled with the rich flavor of the New Year.
The shitang — the section left blank above the painting in the mounting of a hanging scroll — records a five-character regulated poem inscribed by the Qianlong Emperor:
The opening of spring’s brightness celebrates the fine festival;
the whole household rejoices in reunion.
Husband and wife are in accord within the same hall;
children and grandchildren gather charmingly about the knee.
Splendid lanterns blaze on the face of the storey;
auspicious firecrackers sound before the steps.
Jade-like calyxes on the southern branch bring word,
and the light of spring fills all creation.
Original article
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