The Night Revels of Han Xizai: A Spy Report-Turned Masterpiece

Today, we’re going to further explore the thousand-year-old painting called Night Revels of Han Xizai. We will also reveal what happened to the disillusioned scholar official after the “spy report” was presented to the emperor, as well as the fortune of the fragile kingdom and the truth about the painting itself.

In our last episode on The Night Revels of Han Xizai, court painter Gu Hongzhong was sent in like a private investigator to take tattletale pictures during one of Han Xizai’s nightly banquets per the request of Southern Tang’s last ruler Li Yu. After a night of partying, Gu masterfully applied ink and colors on a silk handscroll and completed his so-called “spy report” by vividly representing the lascivious night revels at Han Xizai’s residence.

To bring the night back to life, as it were, Gu Hongzhong used a method similar to what you’d see in a film montage today. Across a handscroll 28.7 centimeters high and 335.5 centimeters wide, he painted five different spatial-temporal vignettes gradually revealing various highlights of the evening. From right to left, it depicts the progress of the banquet, from Han Xizai listening to pipa, striking a drum for dancers, taking a rest among female musicians, chatting with three girls while five female musicians play flutes, and waving goodnight to his guests.

In the first scene, Han wears a comparatively tall hat, which distinguishes him from the other officials in the scene, and sits on a couch listening intently to a lady playing pipa, a pear-shaped stringed musical instrument played in a similar way as a guitar. Also seated on the couch in a red robe is his student Lang Can who ranked first in the highest level of the imperial examination. All the other male guests are officials in the court of Southern Tang, while the women are Han’s concubines or prostitutes. The messy bed behind Han, which shows the fretboard of a pipa, hints at what might have happened after the performance.

In the second scene, Han rolls up his sleeves and strikes a large drum to accompany the dance performance of Wang Wushan, his favorite concubine. Everyone is watching her sensuous movements except monk Deming, senior advisor to the emperor and close friend of Han Xizai. The monk is seen with his hands crossed in front of his chest and his head bowed, looking rather embarrassed. As a drummer, instead of being wild with excitement, Han appears aloof, as if his mood is unaffected by the performance.

In the third scene, Han rests on a couch surrounded by five female companions, one of whom helps him wash his hands in a basin as the others prepare to play musical instruments. Candlelight creates a romantic atmosphere, but another girl with a pipa is seen standing off to one side shying away from the sight of a bed with red curtains.

In the fourth scene, Han sits cross-legged on an easy chair with his robe unbuttoned and his shoes neatly arranged at the base of the chair. In his right hand, Han cools himself with a fan and seems to be casually talking with the three maids immediately around him, while a group of five girls are playing flutes nearby.

In the fifth scene, Han holds two drumsticks in his left hand behind his back and waves goodbye to his guests with his right hand. And while physical contact between his guests and the female companions has become more intimate, Han is standing perfectly straight by himself at the center of the vignette.

Gu Hongzhong employed fine and smooth brush lines to delineate the gestures and facial expressions of Han and his guests. He also used ink and colors in various shades and tones to illustrate the stylish furniture and costumes. For example, the ladies’ light-colored dresses are depicted in stark contrast with the gentlemen’s dark clothes. The furniture is painted in black to reflect Han’s elegant taste, while the designs on curtains and veils are in abundant colors to indicate the extravagant lifestyle of the noble. The furniture, costumes, tableware, musical instruments, and dances portrayed in the painting have provided important first-hand information for future scholarship on respective topics of the period.

But the paramount artistic value of the painting lies in its characterization of the conflicting personality of Han Xizai via detailed depictions of his facial expressions and gestures. On the one hand, he indulges himself in wine, women, and music, even beating a drum for a dancer; while on the other hand, he seems to be rather detached during the performances, for example, beating the drum without a hint of a smile and chatting with his maids during the flute performance. Surrounded by guests who are partying the night away, he appears contrastingly reserved and aloof instead of joyful.

When the painting was presented to emperor Li Yu, he was disappointed and irritated. He dropped the idea of appointing Han as prime minister and demoted him to a post outside the capital in present-day Nanchang of east China’s Jiangxi Province. While in the capital, Han Xizai had been very generous when entertaining his guests and paying concubines, but because his salary would no longer be sufficient to support such a large household, he dismissed all his concubines and singing girls and prepared himself to depart alone for Nanchang.

But in a burst of benevolence, Li Yu rescinded his order and allowed Han to stay in the capital in hopes that he would abandon his depraved way of life and return to the path of virtue. Believing that Han would reform, Li Yu even promoted him to a position only half a step away from prime minister. But contrary to the emperor’s expectations, Han soon recalled his concubines and resumed his night revels. 

Shortly afterwards, in the year 970, Han Xizai died at the age of 69. Li Yu conferred upon him the honorary title of Grand Councilor, which was normally assumed by officials who had held the prime minister’s position during their lifetime. Li Yu also selected for Han the posthumous name of Wenjing, meaning cultivated and refined.

Southern Tang’s end finally came in the year 974, when the Song army invaded from the north and besieged its capital. Li Yu surrendered a year later and was taken captive along with members of his royal family to the Song capital in present-day Kaifeng of central China’s Henan Province. In the year 978, at the relatively young age of 42, Li Yu was poisoned by Northern Song emperor Taizong because of a poem that Li Yu had written in which he lamented, in a thinly veiled manner, the destruction of his own kingdom.

After the downfall of Southern Tang, the paintings collected in its royal storehouse were taken by the Northern Song, including The Night Revels of Han Xizai. But most art historians agree that Gu Hongzhong’s original painting no longer exists, and the surviving version is actually a replica copied during the Southern Song Dynasty, a period from 1127 to 1279, when the Song lost control of their northern territory to the Jurchen-led Jin Dynasty and was forced to retreat south of the Yangtze River.

Evidence is found in the strokes of the brush, the pigments, as well as the details of the costumes and furniture – all show characteristics of the Southern Song style. But the most definitive evidence comes from the colophons applied later by viewers and collectors. Colophons are those familiar red stamps and seals as well as the short poems you’ve undoubtedly seen on many traditional Chinese paintings. 

Of all the 46 colophons on the handscroll, the earliest does not come from Southern Tang, nor its conqueror Northern Song, which existed from the year 960 to 1127. Instead, it belongs to Shi Miyuan, Southern Song’s prime minister who lived from 1164 to 1233, some 200 years later than Han Xizai. Art historians believe the existing version was meticulously replicated from Gu’s original by a court painter of Southern Song who later presented his copied version to Shi Miyuan because Southern Song was mired in the same situation as Southern Tang – threatened by the invasion of the Jurchen-led Jin Dynasty from the north.

The colophons at both ends of the scroll also offer valuable insights into its circulation over the millennium. For example, when the painting was in the imperial collection of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last feudal dynasty lasting from 1644 to 1911, emperor Qianlong added his own stamp upon viewing the painting. Aside from appreciating the artistic skills of the painter, the emperor cautioned that Southern Tang and its court had made itself a laughingstock in history, and therefore, the painting served as a warning for the Qing court against misconduct.

After the Qing Dynasty was toppled in the 1911 Revolution, its last emperor Pu Yi carried the painting out of the Forbidden City when he was forced to abdicate. It circulated in the antique market with no written record until it was purchased by Zhang Daqian for 15.6 kilograms of gold. Zhang Daqian is one of the most internationally renowned Chinese artists of the 20th century, known for his splashed ink and color paintings. Before leaving for South America after World War II, he transferred the painting to the Chinese government for 20,000 USD.

The Night Revels of Hanxizai is now preserved at the Palace Museum in Beijing. In 2012, the painting was listed as a national treasure prohibited from going abroad for exhibition.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Song Yimin, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.