Everyone in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is married, herding cattle and even fighting. They do everything anyway. It is a scene map of Bianjing, which is equivalent to a panoramic photo now. This painting is one of the top ten famous paintings in China, and it is a national treasure. The study of the history of the Northern Song Dynasty is of great value, and ordinary people like us may never have a chance to see it.

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is more than 5 meters long, with more than 500 people, more than 30 buildings, more than 20 boats and more than 60 livestock. It not only reflects the prosperity of people's life in the Northern Song Dynasty, but also implies many social problems. The author of The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is Zhang Zeduan. There is no record of him in the historical materials. The only clue to understand his life is the inscription on The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. According to the inscription, he was a native of Shandong. He used to be a painter in Hanlin Painting Academy, and he painted portraits and life photos for the emperor.

At that time, the Northern Song Dynasty encouraged literati to remonstrate, so many literati remonstrated with Song Huizong in their own way, while Zhang Zeduan chose to remonstrate with Song Huizong in the form of painting, so he made this historic painting. It's a pity that Song Huizong prefers flattery. He understood Zhang Zeduan's intention to make this painting, so he just signed a seal and gave it away. On the surface, the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival depicts a scene of prosperous business and comfortable life. In fact, many details reflect many social problems, such as the quarrel between the government and the people, which expresses the intensification of the contradiction between the government and the people. The watchtower is empty, which expresses the negligence of fire management; There are no guards or even defenses under the city walls, which expresses the indifference of the Northern Song Dynasty to the military and so on.

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is very precious, and the painting form is very rare, so later generations have imitated it. For example, Qiu Yingben in Ming Dynasty was the Suzhou City in Ming Dynasty painted by Chou Ying according to the model of Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. The Qing court in the Qing Dynasty was originally a custom map of the Qing Dynasty drawn by five painters in the Qing Dynasty, imitating the Riverside Map of the Qingming Festival. Although these paintings are imitations, they are very precious historical research materials, so the research value brought by The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival cannot be surpassed.