Narratives of the Imperial Capital from a Visual Perspective: Focusing on the Painting Named Competition on the Jinming Pool Attributed to Zhang Zeduan in the Northern Song Dynasty

Abstract

This article is based on the painting named Competition on the Jinming Pool 金明池争标图 attributed to Zhang Zeduan 张择端 of the Song Dynasty, which is the earliest known realistic depiction of the Jinming Pool among the existing paintings. Although smaller in scale than Along the River during the Qingming Festival 清明上河图, it more fully reflects the rich connotations of the imperial capital from multiple angles and at multiple levels. By comparing the painting with relevant literary works, the “loong boat competition” activities held on the Jinming Pool 金明池 during the Shangsi Festival in the Northern Song Dynasty are examined through three interrelated spaces—the performance space on the water, the imperial ritual space, and the space for the leisure of scholars and commoners—to explore Northern Song literati’s narratives of the imperial capital. These three spaces are closely interconnected: They maintain clearly defined boundaries while also embodying the dynamics between viewing and being viewed. This makes Competition on the Jinming Pool more typical than Along the River during the Qingming Festival in representing the rich connotations and political-cultural transformations of the capital. The performance space on the water, through depictions of naval exercises, water entertainments, purification rituals during the Shangsi Festival, and prayers for rain, directly reveals shifts in national policy and state ceremonies. The imperial ritual space is presented through the deliberate absence of the sovereign's figure in the composition, which hints at the public or concealed/private monarch-subject dynamics and political semiotics encoded in activities such as practicing archery, attending banquets, appreciating flowers, fishing, and composing poetry in response to one another. The space for the leisure of scholars and commoners, depicted through group portraits and distinctions in attire, impressionistically constructs typical scenes of the Jinming Pool as a site of elegant gatherings of literati and urban romance. A variety of literary forms record all of this, thereby confirming and enriching the visual language and presentation of the painting.

Keywords

Competition on the Jinming Pool / Zhang Zeduan / narratives of the imperial capital

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Higher Education Press