The Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival concludes the festivities of the New Year celebrations in China. It is celebrated since the Han dynasty (260 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.) and centers around the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, the first full moon, called Shangyuan, of the New Year. The festivals’ origins are believed to be related to guiding the souls of the ancestors, who had been invited for a visit to their descendants’ families on New Years, to return to their own abode by the light of the lanterns.

The title given to the painting has a double meaning. It can be translated as ‘Colorful Lanterns at the Festival of Shangyuan Day’, where the word Shangyuan means the first full moon of the year. At the same time it can be read as ‘Colorful Lanterns at Shangyuan’, where the word Shangyuan means the municipal district of the southern capital, Nanjing. In Nanjing lanterns were hung up on the evening of the eighth day of the first lunar month and were taken down on the seventeenth day, which was celebrated as the ‘Festival of Lowering the Lanterns’. During the Lantern festival, fairs were held in public. These fairs are still held today. People gather in the streets to enjoy the sight of a myriad of differently shaped lanterns that illuminate the streets. Entertainment for men, women, and children of all ages was provided: betting, gambling, fireworks, riddle guessing contests, and catching goldfish from a basin with a paper net. Last but not least, a special treat sweetened the celebrations, the yuanxiao. These round dumplings made from glutinous rice and have a sweet or salty filling. The dumplings are prepared and offered to family members and guests. Their shape, which resembles the full moon, symbolizes family unity and completeness.

All entertaining activities traditionally associated with the festival can be found in the painting introduced here: firecrackers are for sale, children are carrying home the goldfish they caught in bowls of translucent glass, men are betting and wrestling, and the yuanxiao-dumplings are produced by the flying hands of a cook and his apprentice. Most important are of course the lanterns that are ubiquitous in the street market and illuminate the scene. They take all shapes imaginable: animals including horses, cranes, crabs, elephants, and fish; mythical beasts like dragons, phoenix, and qilin, the Chinese unicorn; plants such as beautiful chrysanthemums, peonies, or pomegranates; human beings like officials or legendary figures like the famous demonqueller Zhong Kui, and geometric shapes are adorned with painted scenes or riddles written on them that the viewers try to solve. The symbolism of many lanterns refers to puns in which the pronunciation of the lantern name is homophonous with the pronunciation of a blessing. One example is the fish, which is depicted in the painting. Fish is pronounced yu, exactly like the word for surplus, yu. Therefore the fish symbolizes the wish that there be no lack of food or other necessities in the New Year but a surplus instead. Another example is the chrysanthemum, pronounced ju which is homophonous with ju in juguan = to hold an official post. This word is used to express the wish for successful career as an official, the most celebrated goal for a young man in society at the time.

The centerpiece of the lantern show in Nanjing was an artificial landscape set up in the street. It was illuminated by hundreds of lights and was named the Aoshan Lantern. Aoshan is the mountain symbolizing the world. It was thought to be situated on the mythological Penglai Isles, the residence of the Immortals in the Eastern Sea. The name of the landscape lantern refers to the shape of this mountain.

What makes the lantern celebrations shown in the present handscroll so special is that the fair is not an ordinary market but an antique market. In fact, it is the only street antique market documented in a painting. Antique markets are described in written documents to have been held only in the Ming dynasty capitals Beijing and Nanjing. There are several contemporary sources that describe the antique market in Beijing, but the Shangyuan dengcai scroll is the only documentation of the antique market held in Nanjing. The antique market is a generic description of a market for all collectibles that delighted the scholars and were prominent in their competition in the display of taste and style. These collectibles included rare antiquities like ritual vessels made of bronze, fine porcelain vessels and decorative objects, old finely cut and engraved jades, lacquer wares, old books, calligraphies and paintings from venerated artists.
The quality of the objects were discussed in manuals of style, printed guides that also informed about how display the objects in an elegant composition and how to distinguish genuine from fake objects. The manuals also describe the quality of replicas which, very different from Western concepts of an original work of art, were considered plausible alternatives when original objects were not available because they were scarce or simply unaffordable.

Collectibles shown in the market also include religious art objects, like Buddha statues, and musical instruments, as well as precious furniture for the study and the house. Very important were potted landscapes, well known in the West by their Japanese name, bonsai. In the scroll we find a great variety of bonsai compositions with miniature trees and rocks as well as blooming flowers in containers of multiple shapes and colors. Cages are set up from which common and exotic animals for the mansion and the park can be selected. In addition to their qualities as pets, many of the animals carry a symbolic meaning that enhances their appreciation. Cranes for example are symbols of longevity. Deer are kept as a wish for a good official position. The word for deer, pronounced lu, is pronounced exactly like the term for emolument.

During the Lantern Festival all members of the family, including the women, left the house to roam the streets, admire the festive sight of the myriad of lanterns and enjoy the company of family members and friends. Usually on the sixteenth day of the first month, men and women gathered for a procession that was called ‘walking off the hundred illnesses’. The purpose of this procession was to walk off potential ailments and stay healthy in the New Year. Our painting shows comparatively few women but from written records and from contemporary literary sources we know that women greatly enjoyed themselves on this festival occasion.