What are the small details and secrets hidden in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival?

The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival is a treasure in the art history of China, which shows the prosperous society of the people in the Northern Song Dynasty. The description of Kaifeng in the capital of song dynasty shows the characteristics of that time. At the same time, there are also some dark sides of society behind prosperity, which are all expressed through the brush of reality.

The whole area of this painting is over five meters. If you enlarge this picture, you can see many details, which show the social problems and some phenomena at that time. It is difficult to find these details without careful discovery and speculation.

Some vendors will hang incense signs in front of their shops. In fact, this represents a kind of self-brewed beverage, and the functions of these beverages are different. At that time, in the Northern Song Dynasty, this kind of drink was very popular, and it was also composed of many drugs, so it had the effect of strengthening the body, so it was welcomed by many consumers.

Secondly, there are some signs that have been far away from home for a long time, which are actually equivalent to hotels or pubs today, where customers can eat or stay. For many scholars who come to Beijing to take the exam, most of them will choose to live in this place to study and recuperate.

Not only that, there are many modern objects in the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, such as light box advertisements. Nowadays, this kind of advertising signboard is very common, but if it is placed in the Northern Song Dynasty, it should be a truly modern article with a strange style. It's a cuboid with the name of the store written around the lamp.

However, in today's society, light box advertising has been replaced by many more advanced advertising technologies, but in some places it still retains such a retro advertising form.