This work is Cai Tiancong’s tribute to and reinterpretation of Zhang Zeduan’s Northern Song masterpiece, Along the River During the Qingming Festival. Recreated in oil on a scale twice that of the original, Cai combines the rich, tactile surface of Western oil painting with the shifting viewpoints and handscroll composition characteristic of traditional Chinese painting. While preserving the original work’s meticulous portrayal of everyday life in Bianjing, he introduces weathered, textured brushwork that evokes the passage of time.

Bridging past and present, East and West, the work creates a visual experience that traverses time and space. Through this ambitious synthesis of medium and scale, Cai gives a celebrated classical masterpiece a renewed visual presence within a contemporary context.