When encountering a stranger, the first thing a healthy ordinary person usually noticed was their appearance.
The emperor normally lived deep within the palace, and ordinary people found it difficult to see his true face. The emperor's appearance was known as the "imperial visage." During the Wei-Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties, influenced by Buddhism, emperors were generally depicted through life-sized Buddha statues. It was not until the Sui dynasty that realistic portraits began to appear, but these paintings were mostly enshrined in ancestral temples, still out of reach for ordinary people.
Among palace painters during the Ming-Qing period, some were native-born while others were missionaries. While in Italy, Lang Shining often painted for churches and excelled at oil paintings with an exceptionally high degree of realism and depth. When he first arrived in China, he did not yet know how to adapt. Once, while painting an oil portrait of Emperor Kangxi, he noticed a patch of dark shadow on Kangxi's face. Without thinking much of it, he painted it exactly as he saw it. Kangxi was very displeased to see a black blotch on his face. He threw the painting to the floor and left.
Later, Kangxi's chief eunuch told Lang Shining that it was better not to be too honest. In the East, having something black on one's face was taboo. Lang Shining painted another portrait of Kangxi, this time without the dark shadow on his face, and only then did Lang Shining regain favor.
Qianlong was only four years old at the time. Before long, he and Lang Shining formed an unlikely friendship in the palace. After Qianlong ascended the throne at twenty-five, he often made time to watch Lang Shining paint, and sometimes even had Lang Shining paint him.
The public enjoyed visiting temple fairs. Temples served