With a personal life spent amidst luxury and sophistication, Song Huizong devoted most of his efforts to the imperial painting academy, organizing the curriculum to raise standards of technical competence, sponsoring important artists and promoting styles based on accurate observation and realism. Huizong himself favored the flower-and-bird genre of painting, and had little interest in landscape. His talent is apparent in his Five-Colored Parakeet, (early 12th century, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts). The picture is meticulously executed and somewhat static with superbly calculated spacing. The accompanying calligraphy, as mentioned above, is dynamic, elegant, and original.

Grass Style

 

His era name of Xuanhe is also used to describe a style of mounting paintings in scroll format. In this style, black borders are added between some of the silk planes. He has been the inaugurator of many set rules that followed afterwards, and this is far more due to his percipience and creativity as an artist than to his mighty power of throne. One of his regarded practices is the integration of painting, poem, signature and stamp. Created early in Song Dynasty, the combined format has been highly praised by Huizong who was accomplished and competent to work out its underlying fascination. His originality in calligraphy, painting and poetry brings a surplus effect to the integrated artwork. In nearly every his work, he signed with a curlycued “the one under the heaven”.

Xue Jiang Gui Zhao

 

Looking back at Chinese history it is really hard to determine whether Huizong was really a failure as an Emperor. The famous and celebrated Chinese classic “The Three Kingdoms” begins with a sentence any middle school kid in China can recite till this day:

"Under Heaven the progress of grand affairs is inevitable; being divided for long the Empire will eventually unite. Being united for long the empire will eventually divide".

Looking back at history the Song Dynasty would have disintegrated with or without Huizong, but the artistic treasures and legacy that this dynasty left behind would not have been with us without him.

By Liu Rong

Editor:Zhang Xiaoxiao