The real artistic influence of this painting on the painting world began in the early 1950s. Once discovered, it has attracted the attention of academic and artistic circles. At that time, China painting circles were learning the creative mode of the Soviet Union and entering the exploration stage of socialist realistic painting theory and practice, trying to express the daily life of workers and peasants. As far back as the beginning of12nd century, the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival proved that painting art has a long history in ancient China.
Since 1950s, many students majoring in traditional Chinese painting and figure painting in art colleges have to copy this picture scroll (or even a part of it) at the initial stage to solve the problem of line drawing training of figure painting, and landscape painters, even painters of various subjects and even painters of other paintings have also gained artistic nutrition from it. No matter how to micro-social life, show details, or how to macro-grasp the scene, organizational structure, temper lines, and realize the integration of painting and science, it has given contemporary painters profound enlightenment.
For more than half a century, most textbooks of primary and middle school students all over the country have published some illustrations of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, which greatly expanded its educational scope. Up to now, there are about hundreds of millions of people in Chinese mainland, and at least tens of millions of people abroad know this painting, which is rare among the famous paintings in ancient and modern China.