Spring Excursion: Unrolling the Epic Journey of a Chinese Treasure

To this day, there are altogether 195 designated historical artifacts on the list of the National Cultural Heritage Administration that can never leave Chinese soil. Among them, 20 are paintings, a genre most susceptible to gradual damage with the passage of time. 

Luckily for visitors to the cultural relic exhibition entitled “The Making of Zhongguo – Origins, Developments and Achievements of Chinese Civilization” held recently at China’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, they had a chance to take a closer look at the most treasured of them all  – Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion (展子虔游春图) which ranks number one on the aforementioned list. While it may already be a bit dull in color, its significance cannot be understated.

So, what is it that makes this painting so special?

Transcript

Spring Excursion: Unrolling the Epic Journey of a Chinese Treasure

Hello, my name is Scott Pruett and I’m an anchor with NewsChina. With our podcast, we aim to provide insight into the current trends of modern China allowing you to clearly see what’s happening today through a historical lens.

Today we introduce a scroll painting that has survived the vicissitudes of social and political turmoil for 1,400 years.

To this day, there are altogether 195 designated historical artifacts on the list of the National Cultural Heritage Administration that can never leave Chinese soil. Among them, 20 are paintings, a genre most susceptible to gradual damage with the passage of time. 

Luckily for visitors to the cultural relic exhibition entitled “The Making of Zhongguo – Origins, Developments and Achievements of Chinese Civilization” held recently at China’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, they had a chance to take a closer look at the most treasured of them all  – Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion (展子虔游春图) which ranks number one on the aforementioned list. While it may already be a bit dull in color, its significance cannot be understated.

So, what is it that makes this painting so special?

Well, firstly, it is the oldest surviving scroll painting and can be traced back to China’s Sui Dynasty which lasted from the years 581 to 618. There’s no denying that many other mural paintings, rock engravings and those found in temples are much older, but the Spring Excursion is unarguably the most ancient when it comes to silk or paper scrolls. 

What further distinguishes this painting from others is its huge artistic value, as it is believed to be China’s earliest landscape painting. In ancient times, both Eastern and Western painters commonly gave prominence to figures, animals or folk customs in their work. It is from Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion that landscape painting took shape and became an independent genre. It spurred a greater number of artists to follow the fashion, and resulted in many outstanding paintings, including One Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains by Wang Ximen (王希孟), one of China’s top landscape painters of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Whether from a historical or artistic point of view, Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion is, without doubt, a jewel in China’s cultural crown.

The artist, Zhan Ziqian, was recognized as one of the best at his time. The Emperor Wen, who was determined to revitalize the culture of the newly-founded dynasty of Sui, invited him to Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – which was known as Daxing at the time and served as the capital – to be a full-time painter. Now, his works can be widely found in various temples in cities like Xi’an, Luoyang in Henan Province and Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province. Following generations of painters, especially those of the succeeding Tang Dynasty, were greatly inspired by their predecessor, and looked up to him as a role model in the art of landscape painting.

It is commonly believed that paintings on paper can survive up to 1,000 years, whereas those on silk some 800 years. It’s hard to believe that Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion, a silk scroll painting, has lasted for as long as 1,400 years. Despite signs of color fading and haziness on its surface, viewers can still identify the fineness and dynamism of the painting itself.

It remains one of a few Chinese cultural relics that has followed such a long, yet uninterrupted, historical route. In fact, this artwork was not given a title until Emperor Huizong (宋徽宗) of the Song Dynasty, who lived between 1082 and 1135 and was an artist himself, named the painting as Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion and included it in the Xuanhe Catalogue of Palace Paintings.（《宣和画谱》）

As the Northern Song Dynasty came to an end, the painting was then owned by a few collectors of succeeding dynasties. Fast forward to China’s last dynasty, that of the Qing. It was the Emperor Kangxi （康熙）who got hold of the piece and returned it to the royal collection. 

In the wake of the Xinhai Revolution （辛亥革命）in 1911 which ended China’s imperial rule and led to the establishment of the Republic of China, Puyi （溥仪）, the last emperor, managed to retain nearly 1,200 cultural relics, a majority of which were calligraphy and paintings. He took them to Tianjin and, later, to Changchun, capital of Manchukuo（满洲国）, the puppet state created by the invading Japanese in 1932.

These artworks remained there for more than a decade. Following Japan’s defeat in 1945, Puyi was forced to flee. As for his priceless collection, it was said to have been smuggled away by his guards and servants, including the painting Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion, which was discovered the following year at a cultural relics market.

During this period, recovering all national cultural treasures became a priority of the new Chinese government. A team of experts was established for just this purpose. One of the professionals was Zhang Boju（张伯驹）, a prominent collector, poet and art critic who was in charge of recovering art removed from the Palace Museum. Knowing the whereabouts of the legendary painting, he tried to persuade Ma Heng （马衡）, the then president of the museum, to purchase it from the market, but failed due to a limited budget.

This didn’t stop Zhang Boju from trying. He sold his family property in Beijing for a large sum of money and, with every spare penny he had, secured Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion. The owner was so obsessed with his new possession that he even called himself “Chun You Lao Ren”（春游老人）, which literally translates to “the old man on spring excursion” and named his house “Zhan Chun Yuan” （展春园）meaning the garden of spring. 

Zhang Boju was born into a politically influential family. His father was a high-ranking official, and a cousin of Yuan Shikai（袁世凯）, the first president of the Republic of China. Zhang Boju became a military officer after graduation from college and later manager and executive board member of Yien Yieh Commercial Bank, one of the biggest banks at that time. Qi Gong, one of the most renowned calligraphers in China, spoke highly of Zhang Boju and noted that no one, before him or after, was remotely in his league as a collector, claiming that he was by far the greatest in China.

In addition to the painting, among his large collection is another important piece Ping Fu Tie,（平复帖） or A Consoling Letter, by Lu Ji, a famous calligrapher of the Jin Dynasty, which lasted from 265 to 316. It ranked No.1 on the list of calligraphy works that must remain on Chinese soil. To secure the piece, Zhang Boju endured a similar experience to that of purchasing Spring Excursion. He spent a considerable amount, buying the artwork from a descendant of the Qing Dynasty imperial family.

Unfortunately, the collector and his priceless trove of cultural treasures became the target of a group of bandits. They kidnapped him and demanded a huge ransom from his wife. Since Zhang Boju had spent almost all of his capital on preserving these cultural relics, there was not much left in the pot to bargain with. He insisted that he would rather die than to sell any of the masterpieces to pay the ransom. Eight months later, the criminals had no other choice but to release him for far less money than they had hoped.

His wife, Pan Su, a renowned painter in her own right, suffered hardship in her early life. At the age of 13, her family became destitute and she ended up being trapped in a brothel. Seven years later, at the age of 20, she met Zhang Boju and they were married soon after. 

Zhang Boju taught Pan Su (潘素), who was his fourth wife, how to paint, even inviting China’s top artists to help her, including Qi Baishi （齐白石）and Zhang Daqian（张大千）, among others. All his efforts paid off and Pan Su became a widely recognized painter who spearheaded the genre of blue-green landscape painting in China. In 1972, on the occasion of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, Pan Su’s version of the Spring Excursion was presented to the Japanese emperor as a national gift from China. 

It is still hard to believe that, in 1955, after all the sacrifices he made for his collection, Zhang Boju decided to contribute the top eight pieces from his collection to the country, which were later put on display at the Palace Museum.

Among these, the most precious were Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion and Lu Ji’s Ping Fu Tie. Zhang Boju even refused the 200 thousand yuan subsidy offered by the government, only accepting a certificate signed by Mao Dun, the then Minister of Culture, for his enormous contribution to the country.

As highly respected and talented as he was, Zhang Boju suffered greatly during the decade-long social turmoil of China’s Cultural Revolution. He was persecuted and exiled to the remote countryside, where he was humiliated further because of his family background. Following the end of the upheavals in 1976, thanks to Zhou Enlai（周恩来）, the then Chinese premier, Zhang returned to Beijing and lived a simple life with his wife until his death in 1982 at the age of 84.

Huang Yongyu（黄永玉）, a renowned Chinese painter, spoke of Zhang Boju as a person who was “humble in affluence, content in poverty, fearless in danger and collected when being attacked.” For his whole life, Zhang committed himself, heart and soul, to the protection of China’s cultural relics and earned himself due respect from the public. When he passed away, thanks to his unremitting effort, he left behind a trove of invaluable national treasures. 

Quietly resting in the Palace Museum, Zhan Ziqian’s Spring Excursion boasts genuine artistic beauty. What is equally important is the 1,400-year-old cultural heritage the painting carries, as well as the spirit and morale it embodies.

That is end of our podcast. Thank you to our writer Song Yimin, translator Liu Junhuan, and copy editor James McCarthy. We hope you enjoyed it and thank you for listening. See you next week.