So, this painting is clearly a masterpiece. I love the detail, and its standing as a piece of documentary history is unparalleled in extant Chinese painting. It is a wonderful window into a vibrant and rich period of Chinese history, depicting a city that likely housed 1 million souls. However, as a painting it was stylistically anachronistic. Large scale landscapes, in scroll or hanging format, that were richly and realistically detailed were no longer de rigueur in elite Chinese society, with the notable exception of the patron who's Kaifeng is depicted in the famous scroll: Emperor Huizong. He was a lover of realistic painting, as represented by his gorgeous bird and flower paintings. (Attribution is of course, complicated, but that is a different story) Wang Ximeng's A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains is a great counterpart to the qingming picture in this regard. It too came from Huizong's time, and was similarly harkening back to the period of realism and grand landscape that ruled elite society in the 10th and 11th centuries But, reflecting the broader changes towards atomization of Chinese society in the southern song, Chinese painting had moved on in most other corners of elite Confucian society, to more personal, and more individualized artwork. Painting started to shift in the 11th century from the work of skilled artisans, mostly for the emperor, to that of the literati, mostly in hand scroll form, and mostly eschewing the trappings of highly skilled drawing. The paintings they produced were not supposed to be technical masterpieces. Technique, in the minds of these literati would obfuscate the revelation of the soul of the painter/poet/scholar. As many of the hand scrolls these men were creating were personal gifts, they were designed to connect one scholar to another, in a web of personal interconnections. Most important was some kind of perceived unity of poetic grace, calligraphic beauty, and expressive painting that connected the now disparate literati. The question then arises: why disparate? The story of mid-imperial China is above all a story of mass migration south. At no time was that movement more intense than the 100 years following Huizong's fall. With the southern song came the rise of local elites in a new sense. These weren't necessarily the old aristocratic families of the tang, instead they were the literati class that emerged from the meritocratic northern song, a class that was brimming with pride, brilliance, and a desire to restore the primacy of their version of Confucian ideology. This all coalesced in the late 11th and 12th centuries around the philosophy of zhu xi. Ironically, as many thought they were fundamentalists, zhu xi's work was deeply syncretic, clearly reflecting Buddhist and (more significantly) Daoist influence. Interestingly, as they became philosophically united, the literati were increasingly geographically separated. Hence the desire to connect with scrolls. The last piece of the story explains why such massive scale realistic pieces never again graced Chinese dynastic art history, and may be evident: the emergence of the localized elite power circles in the southern song reflected a movement away from central power and influence that represents imperial Chinese society thereafter. So with painting: the anti-technique, pro expressive style of the literati became the core of Chinese painting. Rather than some kind of emperor dictated standards of style (as had existed in the past). Remarkably, some artists moved quite devotedly into an abstract expressionism which predates similar euro/American movements by several centuries. Peter Bol has done some remarkable work with gis to show how elites created localized power bases while also maintaining wide geographical connections with each other. Much of my painting commentary reflects the study of the subject with Robert Harrist at Columbia. However, I can dig up some interesting sources on the subject for any who are interested.