Ricardo Joppert points out that Huizong was a great lover of culture and art, who believed that Chinese culture had reached its apogee after 1000 years of development and evolution. Thus he systematically promoted and collated virtually every aspect of culture-calligraphy, painting, poetry, literature, music, rites, architecture, gardening, pottery, archeology, mineralogy, philosophy-in order to create a complete canon of Chinese civilization.
黎嘉德指出，宋徽宗深愛文化、藝術，認為中國文化經過了千年的發展與演變，已經到了盛開的成熟期，因此他大力提倡並整理書、畫、詩、文、音樂、禮儀、建築、園林藝術、陶藝、考古、金石、哲學等，全面建構中國文明。