婴戏图是中国人物画种类中一个很小的分支，但却具有重要的艺术与历史研究价值，婴戏图多表现儿童日常生活与游戏状态，往往有放牧、闹学、婴戏货郎、节庆祭礼、娱乐玩耍等主题，因其寓意吉祥受到民间广泛喜爱。儿童形象最早大约在战国玉器中出现，经过汉代画像石、画像砖的发展，在魏晋时期出现在人物画图卷上，唐五代则是儿童绘画技法的成熟期，直到宋代儿童形象独立成题，婴戏成为专门画科，婴戏图发展达到鼎盛。婴戏图在宋代的繁荣离不开特定的时代背景，两宋城市经济发展、市民阶层崛起、市井文化丰富等都为婴戏图繁荣创造了有利条件。而统治阶级的官方推行则是婴戏图繁荣的最主要原因，由于战争的影响导致两宋尤其是南宋时期人口数量下降，统治者为了鼓励生育所以以官方画院为主导开始大量创作婴戏图，此时也涌现出一批以画院画家为首，众多民间画家跟随的以画儿童见长的画家，如苏汉臣、李嵩、苏焯等，其他领域的画家或多或少也都有儿童形象出现在作品中，如刘松年、阎次平、李唐、马远等。这样从上至下的创作风潮直接影响到了民间的审美取向，许多易于保存观赏的画幅形式也大大增加，如团扇、册页等，另外绘画商品化的发展也为婴戏图在宋代的传播发展提供了重要支持。

目前留存于世的婴戏图人物形象塑造真实，表情刻画生动，服饰玩具描绘精细，本文即从婴戏图的画幅样式、风格特征和美学表现三方面对存世作品的图像特征进行分析，其中风格特征部分主要考察了婴戏图的各类题材以及具有代表性的儿童形象，并进一步以形式主义分析的方法对婴戏图的画面空间结构和形式构成做出解读，最后通过图像的细读将宋代婴戏图风格大致分为雅丽精致和淳朴亲民两种。在明了图像特征的基础上对婴戏图画面所展现的叙事性进行探讨，将叙事模式分为剧场性叙事、情境性叙事与图谱性叙事，最后总结婴戏图的叙事特征可为“开放的结构”与“为观看而设计的画面”。

The Baby-playing picture is a small branch of Chinese figure painting, but it has important artistic and historical research value. The baby play picture mostly shows children's daily life and game state, often with the theme of herding, playing, baby play peddler, festival and celebration, entertainment and play, etc. It is widely loved by the folk because of its auspicious meaning. The image of children appeared in the jade warring states, after the development of portrait stone and portrait brick in the  Han dynasties, it emerged in the figure painting scroll in the Wei and Jin dynasties. The Tang and Five Dynasties were the mature period of children's painting techniques. Until the Song Dynasty, the image of children became an independent topic, baby play became a special painting subject, and the development of baby play picture reached its peak. The prosperity of baby play picture in the Song Dynasty can not be separated from the specific historical background. The economic development of the city, the rise of the urban class, and the rich culture of the city created favorable conditions for the prosperity of baby play picture. The official implementation of the ruling class is the main reason for the prosperity of baby play pictures. Due to the impact of war, the population of the two dynasties, especially the Southern Song Dynasty, declined. In order to encourage fertility, the rulers began to create a large number of baby play pictures led by the official painting academy. At this time, a number of painting academy painters emerged, and many folk painters followed the painters who were good at painting children, such as Su Hanchen, Li Song, Su Chuo, etc. Painters in other fields also had children's images in their works, such as Liu Songnian, Yan Chiping, Li Tang, Ma Yuan, etc. This top-down creation trend directly affected the aesthetic orientation of the people. Many forms of painting that are easy to preserve and appreciate have also increased greatly, such as group fans, album pages, etc. In addition, the development of painting commercialization also provided important support for the dissemination and development of baby play pictures in the Song Dynasty.

Currently, there are still many infant play pictures in the world, with realistic character images, vivid facial expressions, detailed clothing and toy depictions. In this paper, the image features of existing works are analyzed from three aspects: painting style, aesthetic expression, and image features. Among them, the style feature section mainly examines the various themes of infant play pictures and the representative child images, and further interprets the spatial structure and formal composition of infant play pictures using formalist analysis methods. Finally, through a close reading of the images, the style of Song Dynasty infant play pictures is roughly divided into elegant and refined and simple and down-to-earth. Based on the understanding of image features, this paper explores the narrative content of infant play pictures, dividing the narrative mode into theatrical narrative, situational narrative, and general narrative. Finally, it concludes that the narrative feature of infant play pictures is "an open structure" and "a picture designed for viewing".