探討宋代風俗畫就須進入當代時空裡去審視它，將「美」的世界與「現實」的世界相貫通。商業的高度發展改變了宋人的生活型態與消費習慣，人們的思想觀念亦隨之變化，創作者不再把自己侷限在小小的創作環境之中，而是與社會的消費行為產生親密互動。社會的上層階級因消費行為而意識到自我的存在，世俗平民百姓之存在也受到上層階級的認知，至於繪畫中普通人的形象也漸漸在畫面上擴展開來。
風俗畫中「男性圖像」的創作意念受社會價值判斷影響，畫家有意識地創造單一形式之圖像用以代表全部的男性。畫面中展現男性活動與聚會的群體歡樂氣氛，也就是說「男性」被允許處於開放的空間中聊天、聚會、或工作；畫家幾乎擺脫不了表現「男性」與「工作」相關之概念，亦使圖像表現的自由度受到限制。
南宋的風俗畫家不再像北宋的風俗畫家企圖將所有現實世界的題材精確地表現於畫面之中，而是以生活寫實性為基礎，敢於追求新的藝術創造；在畫面中，把男性人物安排在環境惡劣的氣候之下，是為了突顯其不畏艱難的奮鬥過程，並表現出人物活動的時間與空間意識。同時，畫家也注意到賭博買賣物品的情形，將之轉化為圖像，以近距離的方式取景並且忠實地呈現他們的生活面貌，不僅描繪此階級中人物互動的情形，也表現出社會階級的「物以類聚」。本文將側重於單一階層人物活動的特寫，並進而解析其時代性意義。
The way to discover Sung genre painting is to treat yourself in and link up "Beauty" with "Reality". Because of mature commerce in Sung Dynasty, the lifestyle and behavior of customers had been changed. Different lifestyle also makes peoples' thinking different. The artists interacted with consumer society friendly and they were not secluded. Therefore, the theme of painting was not limited and artists liked to paint novel object at that time. There were more and more paintings reflected the fact of common people life. It meant that artists showed his feeling and represented personal style in their works. In the other word, the painting was not only accurate description of Nature but like the artistic production communed with human life.
The genre paintings were correlated with folkway, socio-economic level and socio-value. The role of male is a symbol of the laborer in genre paintings. The painters followed the traditional Chinese viewpoint of the male, they must be brave, work-hard, sturdy and obeyed socio-rules. Work is an unshirkable duty of the male. But due to economic growth in Sung Dynasty, the emperor is not the only sponsor. In another word, viewers came from various levels of society and the market of genre painting was diversification. Painters extracted the reality which they wanted from social environment.
The major difference of Northern and Southern Sung genre painting is essence of theme. For example, in the Northern Sung, painters interpreted a pedlar as traditional way. However, the painters in the Southern Sung emphasized the cultural influence on a pedlar. The males were not like before, they maybe gamblers, belligerents or losers. In this thesis, we focus on the role of male and find out significance behind the genre painting.
