What is the earliest name of the New Year's Eve paintings, anciently known as the "door god paintings"?

Nianhua (Chinese New Year) paintings, anciently known as "Door God Paintings", was first called "Door Paintings".

The Origin of New Year's Paintings

Every Spring Festival, people like to buy some bright and colorful New Year's Paintings, pasted on the door or indoor, to add to the peaceful atmosphere of the New Year's festivities. Spring Festival stickers, in our country has a long history. New Year's paintings, the ancient name "door god painting", its earliest name is called "door painting". According to "Customs", in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasty, the religious beliefs of the New Year's Day have been sacrificed to the customs of the door, so God Tantui, Yubi became the earliest Division of the God of the Door in our country. In the Jin Dynasty, the main duties of the security forces "Jing Chu chronicle" said: "the first day of the first month, to the two gods posted around the door, the left Shentian right Yubi, commonly known as the door god."

East Han Cai Lun invented paper, before the Tang Dynasty, mostly hand-painted door gods. The role of the door god is also not the image of the legend, and the emergence of real people. It is a common saying that the white-faced general in the door god is Qin Shubao of Licheng, Qi Zhou (present-day Jinan City, Shandong Province), and the black-faced general is Hu Jingde of Shuo Zhou (present-day Shuo County, Shanxi Province). Li Shimin's biography" records: Tang Taizong, Li Shimin due to nightmares caused by illness, every late at night, I heard ghosts screaming, so scared that the heart is not peaceful, sleep and food disturbed. One of the ministers suggested: "Send a general to guard the door, it will drive away the ghosts." General Qin Shubao, Yuchi Jingde volunteered to full armor, a man holding a sword, a man holding a whip, standing on both sides of the palace door, guarding all night, Taizong's disease was cured. Taizong rejoiced, but wanted to generals to guard the door is not a long-term strategy, then ordered the two generals of the mighty image painted on the palace door, later imitated the painting on paper or wood engraved and printed and prevalent in the world. As Qin, Yuchi two people are generals, so the Tang Dynasty's door god more powerful generals appeared, coupled with folk artists in the Tang Dynasty on the basis of the history of the play, the image of the two of them for artistic processing, so the gradual evolution of its "door god" for the Nianhua painting.

In the late Sui Dynasty, with the production of woodcut books, woodblock prints also came into being. In terms of painting, the Liang Dynasty Liu Yan's "young people walking map" can be called the precursor of the New Year's paintings. In the Tang and Fifth Dynasties, there was a wide range of paintings, including Han Hwang's "Fengying Picture", Zhou Fang's "Ladies in Spring", "Butterfly Puffing", Li Song's "Lamp Viewing Picture", Yi Qingzhi's "Lantern Festival Picture", Xu Xie's "Peony Picture", and Su Hanchen's "Infant Bathing Picture", and so on. Especially "baby bath", painted on the painting of the baby naked tied red bib, play dance flower side, coloring is vivid, lifelike. This proves that the Tang Dynasty in the composition and color, have reached a considerable level.

By the Song Dynasty, woodcut replaced the portrait. China's earliest engraved New Year's Paintings, seen in the Southern Song Dynasty printed woodblock New Year's Paintings, the picture has Zhao Feiyan, Wang Zhaojun, Banji, green beads and other beautiful women, Guanzhang Zhao Ma Huang five tigers. The Yuan Dynasty New Year paintings of longevity, the Eight Immortals, pine and crane, and so on, and there is a sale of the trading market. Ming Dynasty, due to the advocacy of Zhu Yuanzhang, this custom has been further developed. Qing dynasty, due to the opera, embroidery novels and the use of illustrations and other woodcuts rise, and in the drawing technology and carving technology has been a great development, so that the woodblock prints into the peak period. In particular, the Qing Yongzheng, Qianlong years, more prosperous, originating all over the country, and emerged a large number of professional painters and carvers specializing in woodblock prints.

Before and after the Xinhai Revolution, not only did not get the development, but suffered a cold reception, the reason for this is mainly due to the impact of the war. During this period to Shanghai's old month as the representative of the lithographic yearbook is popular north and south, forming a unique "old month" wind, a large number of famous month card stand out, such as Xie Zhiguang, Zhou Muqiao, Jin Meisheng, HangXiYing, HuBoXiang, XuYingQing, ZhengManDuo, YeShanYu, and so on.

During the war period, the liberated areas out of a lot of masterpieces of New Year's paintings, mainly anti-Japanese and the toiling masses as the subject matter, such as enlisting in the army map, New Year's labor, brother and sister to open up the land and so on. After the founding of New China, the art of New Year's paintings developed rapidly. Whether it is modeling layout, or sentiments, both inheritance and development, created a lot of excellent works to promote new morality, new ideas, new life.

For more than a thousand years, folk artists have been passed down from generation to generation, from father to son, in extremely simple conditions, created a batch and batch of woodblock prints rich in national flavor and unique flavor, and gradually formed the woodblock prints of Taohuaowu in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Yangliuqing in Tianjin Province, Yangjiabu in Huafang, Shandong Province, Fengxiang in Shaanxi Province, Zhuxianzhen in Kaifeng, Henan Province, Shaoyang Tantou in Hunan Province, Mianzhu in Sichuan Province, Foshan in Guangdong Province, Zhangzhou in Fujian Province, Linfen in Hebei Province, Wuqiang in Hebei Province, and Wuqiang in Yunan Province, which are the most popular woodblock prints in the world. Linfen, Hebei Wuqiang, Yunnan Dali and other famous woodblock prints. These areas have a considerable scale in the Qing Yongzheng, Qianlong years, most of its works with concise lines, bright colors, and the integration of reform and opening up to new subjects, focusing on the plot, interest and modeling of the performance of the characters vivid and lovely, full of vitality, so that the work has a new idea, quite ornamental and collectible value.