Knowledge of woodcut New Year pictures

Generally recognized New Year pictures are produced in Yangliuqing, Tianjin, Zhuxian Town, Kaifeng, Yangjiabu, Weifang, Wuqiang, Hengshui, Hebei and Taohuawu, Suzhou. The rest are Mianzhu in Sichuan, Fengxiang in Baoji and Tantou in Hunan.

New Year pictures have four origins, three origins and six origins. But the most famous are Zhuxian Town in Henan and Yangliuqing in Tianjin.

Zhuxian Town New Year pictures are generally considered to have originated in the Song and Jin Dynasties. During the Northern Song Dynasty, engraving printing centers were basically formed, such as the capital of song dynasty in Tokyo, Chengdu in Sichuan and Pingyang in Shanxi (now Linfen, Shanxi). During the Song Dynasty, with the prosperity of commerce, the growth of citizen class and the popularization of popular literature and art, genre painting with the theme of reflecting urban life and meeting citizens' aesthetic needs rose, and the printing of woodcut watermark genre painting also began at this time. Meng Yuanyuan wrote "Dream of Tokyo" in the Northern Song Dynasty: "In recent years, the common people have printed and sold door gods, Zhong Kui, peach boards, peach symbols, blunt donkeys, deer horses and sky stickers. "Shen Kuo's Supplementary Talk on Meng Xi": "In the fifth year of Xining (AD 1027), old Wu Daozi was forbidden to paint Zhong Kui, and the painter was ordered to copy the couch, and one copy was given to the second assistant minister. "These all reflect the popularity of temple fair editions and fangke New Year pictures in the Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, people who study New Year pictures today believe that woodblock New Year pictures began in the Northern Song Dynasty and originated in Kaifeng, Henan. After the shame of Jingkang at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Bianliang in Tokyo was devastated and increasingly desolate. The printing industry of woodblock New Year pictures moved south to Zhuxian Town, which was less affected, and continued to develop. Zhuxian Town became the printing and sales center of woodblock New Year pictures. Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures are also considered as the ancestors of today's Woodblock New Year Pictures.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Zhuxian Town entered its heyday, and the printing industry of woodblock New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town also advanced by leaps and bounds. According to the legend of old artists from generation to generation, there are 30 or 40 workshops with more than 100 craftsmen in Zhuxian Town, and there are countless small workshops that have no facade and will set up stalls to engrave New Year pictures. On the ninth day of September every year, it is a "door-god meeting", which sings three days of drama to reward God. Every workshop started, and merchants from several neighboring provinces came to catch up with the wholesale New Year pictures. At this time, Zhuxian Town can be described as "every family will touch it, and every household is good at painting", and the woodblock New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town are the most prosperous at this time.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the eastern part of Henan Province was repeatedly flooded, Zhuxian Town declined day by day, and the New Year pictures industry suffered a heavy blow. Many workshops closed down or moved to Kaifeng to continue their business. Later, the Republic of China was in turmoil, warlords fought for years, and Zhuxian Town's New Year pictures industry also collapsed. Until liberation, only a dozen brands were still operating. After the founding of New China, the traditional woodblock New Year pictures were regarded as "feudal superstition" and were not allowed to print works with traditional themes. 1956, Kaifeng completed the socialist transformation of rival industrial artists, and established the Zhuxian Town New Year Pictures Production Cooperative in East Street of Kaifeng City, carving New Year pictures with the theme of "People's Commune is Good", but it ended hastily because of its unpopularity and limited market. During the ten-year turmoil, the traditional woodblock New Year pictures were even denounced as "closed source repair" and "poisonous weeds", and the old artists were devastated, and hundreds of years old versions were burned out.

In the mid-1980s, Zhuxian Town and Kaifeng City began to restore Zhuxian Town's woodblock New Year pictures, organized some old artists, collected some old editions collected by old artists, and set up the New Year Pictures Society one after another. The production and sales of Zhuxian Town's woodblock New Year pictures gradually got on the right track. In 2005, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures were selected as the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage, and Guo Taiyun, an artist who was over 80 years old in Kaifeng Museum, was named as an outstanding inheritor of national intangible cultural heritage.

Mr. Lu Xun, who is quite accomplished in printmaking, also praised Zhuxian Town woodcut New Year pictures: "Zhuxian Town woodcut is unpretentious, the characters are not coquettish, the colors are rich, and the local flavor is strong, which has the unique characteristics of the northern New Year pictures." He also advocated learning from the people when creating a new version of the painting: "Things like the door gods in Henan used to be found in my hometown Shaoxing, and they were also posted on the wall of the kitchen door. Everything is different now, mostly lithographs. I think we should try our best to use woodcuts that are well known and loved by the public ... "Mr. Lu Xun also collected many woodcut New Year pictures made by Zhuxian Town, which are now kept in the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Shanghai, and it is also one of the few important remains of Zhuxian Town's old works.