《采桑图》轴，清，闵贞绘，纸本，墨笔，纵123.8厘米，横52厘米。

　　署款：“正斋闵贞画。”钤“闵贞之印”、“正斋”、“蓼塘居士”、“青乔”。鉴藏印钤“益昌李氏子青珍藏”。

　　图绘高大的桑树下，一娇小女子登高采桑的情景。她一边仰头目视着桑树的枝叶，一边持杆不住地击打，同时，手举竹篮承接片片落叶。人物全身竭力向上，形体伸展自然，眼与手的关系协调，“打”与“接”的动作连贯，表明作者具有细致的观察能力和扎实的写实基础。

　　此图巧于布局，作者为了突出采桑女，省略了不必要的背景，并通过女子脚下的巨石将其自然地安置于画心中部，使其在引人瞩目的同时，于构图上又起到了承上启下的重要作用，通过女子举杆打桑的动态将高大的桑树与低矮的山石、土坡等连接起来，从而令物象间产生一种长方形的结构关系，相互间气脉贯通，令简约的构图显得饱满并具有完整性。图中女子的衣纹富有表现力，繁复交叠，表现出棉质布料柔软的质地。女子健壮活泼的体态则由浓淡、粗细、顿折变化的线条加以准确的勾画。此外，以线塑型表现的衣纹与以浓墨皴擦点染的树石形成技法上的互补，丰富了画面的视觉效果。

　　仕女画发展至清代表现范围日益扩大，已从晋代的贤妇、贵妇、仙女等扩展到了各个阶层、各种身份、各样处境的女子。但画家们最乐于创作的仕女形象当属戏剧小说、传奇故事中的各色女子或是他们心目中理想的“美女”。以写实手法表现生活中的普通女性在清代尚属少见，该幅是其中难得的具有浓郁生活气息的优秀作品。

 

--------Introduction in English--------

 

"Picking Sang Tu" axis, Qing, Min Zhenhua, paper, ink, 123.8 cm vertical, 52 cm horizontal.

Signature: "Zhengzhai Minzhen Painting." Jun "Minzhen Seal", "Zhengzhai", "Polygonum Tangjushi", "Qingqiao". "Yichang Li's Ziqing Collection" is a collection of stamps.

Under the tall mulberry tree, a small woman climbs to the top to pick up mulberry trees. As she looked up at the branches and leaves of mulberry trees, she could not stop beating them while holding the pole. At the same time, she held up the bamboo basket to accept the fallen leaves. The characters try their best to move upward, stretch naturally, coordinate the relationship between eyes and hands, and make the action of "beating" and "connecting" coherent, which shows that the author has meticulous observation ability and solid realistic foundation.

In order to highlight the mulberry-picking girl, the author omitted the unnecessary background, and placed it naturally in the center of the painting through the boulder under the woman's feet, which not only attracted people's attention, but also played an important role in the composition. The tall mulberry tree and the low mulberry tree were connected by the dynamics of the women's pole-lifting and mulberry-beating. The hills, rocks, slopes and so on are connected, thus creating a rectangular structural relationship between objects and images, connecting each other's veins, making the simple composition full and complete. In the picture, the women's clothes are expressive, complex and overlapping, showing the soft texture of cotton fabric. Women's vigorous and lively posture is accurately delineated by the lines of shade, thickness and sudden change. In addition, the complementarity of the clothes lines represented by line sculpture and the techniques of forming dense ink rubbed and dyed stones enriches the visual effect of the picture.

With the development of the painting of ladies to Qing Dynasty, the scope of representation of ladies is expanding day by day. It has expanded from the virtuous ladies, noble ladies and fairies of Jin Dynasty to the ladies of all strata, all kinds of identities and all kinds of situations. But painters are most willing to create the image of ladies in dramatic fiction, legendary stories of various women or their ideal "beauty". In the Qing Dynasty, it was rare for ordinary women to express their lives in a realistic way. This painting is one of the rare works with a strong flavor of life.