In the world treasure trove of colorful art, Chinese painting art nourishes the artistic spirit of the Chinese nation with its profound cultural connotations and outstanding aesthetic style. At the same time, Chinese painting, as the most brilliant branch of the Oriental Art Garden, has formed a dual peak confrontation with Western painting in terms of artistic concepts and achievements, jointly writing a brilliant chapter in the history of human art. The Guan Shan Yue Art Museum Library and Literature Museum has been launching a "Special Collection Appreciation" activity since June 2023, providing a collection of exquisite large picture albums for readers to appreciate and read. So far, it has promoted the "Complete Collection of Song Paintings" of the "Chinese Painting Series" for 15 consecutive sessions. Readers hope to invite experts and scholars to deeply interpret the artistic charm of Chinese painting in conjunction with the "Special Collection Appreciation" activity. Therefore, we have decided to use "Meaningful and Poetic Ancient Chinese Painting" as the theme of the "Mirror of Beauty Reading" series of lectures for the year 2024. In the first lecture on "Mirror of Aesthetic Reading", we specially invited Mr. Yu Hui, a researcher at the Palace Museum, to give a lecture. He will start with the interpretation of "Along the River during the Qingming Festival" and lead readers to experience the humanistic spirit contained in Song paintings. Mr. Yu Hui believes that the core of Song painting is to depict people's state in the early stages of self-awareness, highlighting the increasingly prominent people-oriented trend in society at that time, which gave rise to certain humanistic ideas and related painting works. This is one of the reasons why many calligraphy and painting enthusiasts today are fond of Song painting. Humanistic thought reflects the dignity of the entire human race to the individual, the pursuit of life value, the maintenance of life, the grasp of fate, and the concern and concern for disasters. It highly protects natural history and the living environment, and highly values the material culture and spiritual civilization left over from human history. In the words of Confucius, it can be summarized as "benevolent people love others.". So, in the painting of the Song Dynasty, especially in the painting "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", how was the humanistic spirit and benevolence expressed through depicting people's livelihood activities? Where is its artistic appeal?

Yu Hui, originally from Chun'an, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was born in Beijing in 1959. He graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Nanjing Normal University with a bachelor's degree in 1983, and from the Department of Art History at the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master's degree in 1990. He has been working at the Palace Museum since the same year (retired and rehired), mainly engaged in the identification and research of ancient calligraphy and painting. He strives to introduce interdisciplinary research methods and achievements based on the characteristics of the research object. On the basis of identification, he further explores ancient painting, especially Song and Yuan painting, in terms of history, humanities, social life, and artistic inheritance, and initially forms the theory and method of textual research on images.

On the afternoon of March 23rd (Saturday) at 3:00 pm, in the second floor lecture hall of the Guanshan Yue Art Museum, we look forward to Mr. Yu Hui's eloquence. Mr. Yu Hui has been dedicated to the identification and research of ancient Chinese calligraphy and painting for decades, and has written extensively. We have repeatedly recommended his monographs in the "Beauty Reading Book" section, and this time, in conjunction with the lecture, we will once again introduce Mr. Yu Hui's relevant works in the next book list. This forms a correlation between the three activity brands of "Mirror of Beauty Reading", "Special Collection Appreciation", and "Beauty Reading Book" in our library. We look forward to providing systematic guidance and services for readers in reading, exhibition viewing, and art history knowledge accumulation under the guidance of experts.