"Spring Dawn in the Han Palace", silk, color, 30.6 Cm vertical, 574.1 Cm wide, is known as one of the "Top Ten Famous Chinese Paintings handed down from generation to generation" and is now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This painting describes the daily chores in the palace in early spring in the form of a hand scroll: dressing up, watering, breaking branches, arranging flowers, raising animals, singing and dancing, playing and singing, etc. It depicts more than a hundred people including concubines, maids, princes, eunuchs, painters, etc. The characters are brightly dressed and have different postures. The clothes of the characters in the painting are typical of the Tang Dynasty, and the furniture has the characteristics of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the painting depicts not the Han Dynasty palace, but the Han court. "Spring Dawn in the Han Palace" is an outstanding representative of Qiu Ying's paintings of beautiful ladies with heavy colors. The brushwork is fresh and vigorous, and the colors are elegant. The trees, strange stones and gorgeous palaces are interspersed with each other, presenting a magnificent scene like a fairyland. In terms of composition and layout, the arrangement has a strong sense of space. The biggest feature of the painting is the house and yard, which divide the picture into two. Rows of palace houses run through the picture from right to left. The courtyard and the houses each occupy half of the area, which increases the horizontal space of the picture. Some ladies are lying inside the house, reading and playing the piano, and some are admiring the scenery and chatting outside the courtyard. They move from the house to the outside, from one house to another house, from one courtyard to another courtyard, and from outside the palace to inside the palace. The vertical space of the entire picture is also expanded with the activities of the characters. The characters sit or stand in a well-proportioned manner. Each group of characters echoes each other, making the picture relaxed and rhythmic. This painting is truly a wonderful work among Qiu Ying's historical story paintings. It is unique and leading among Chinese heavy-color paintings of ladies.
