Qingming Shang He Tu depicts the flourishing and bustling scenes along the Bian River and around the East Corner Gate of Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song dynasty. The painting briefly re-creates the life in the Northern Song capital Bianjing in the 12th century, the most prosperous period of the dynasty.
With fine and freehand brushworks and light and elegant colors, Qingming Shang He Tu is different from most architectural paintings. It realistically gives a bird's eye view of the southeastern corner of Bianjing, a typical urban area in the Northern Song dynasty, by adopting the traditional forms and methods like handscroll and "scattered-focus perspectives". Long but not lengthy, complicated but not disorderly, the close-knit painting seems to be drawn at once and its details form a coherent whole. The painting objects, no matter they are grand scenes like open country, broad river and high city walls or small details like figures in boat or carriage, goods on vendor's stand and characters on shop's sign, are elaborately delineated. The monumental painting with over 500 figures is interspersed with numerous orderly and interesting plots.
Behind the scroll are affixed with 96 seals and inscribed with colophons of 13 persons including Zhang Zhu of the Jin dynasty and Wu Kuan of the Ming dynasty.
The painting is recorded in books like Qinghe Shuhua Fang, Gengzi Xiaoxia Ji and Shigu Tang Shuhua Ji.