Why do so many painters love to paint the New Year's Day pictures?

The beautiful symbolism of the subject matter of the New Year's Day is undoubtedly very attractive to authors and readers, and for painters, the relative abundance of subject matter and the relative freedom of expression, their enthusiasm for the New Year's Day is not difficult to understand.

Before talking about the year of the map, it is necessary to "year of the" a little explanation.

The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar. The Han Book of the Five Elements, "the first of the year, the first month, the first day of the month, is the three dynasties" (i.e., "year of the dynasty", "the month of the dynasty", "the day of the dynasty"), "after the Han Dynasty", "the first day of the month", "the day of the dynasty". "), "Houhan Book Zhou Pan biography" in the "year of the morning will gather the students, talking about the end of the day," the record. "The name of the year is the beginning of the year, and its designation varies from one period to another. In fact, the initial Spring Festival refers to the twenty-four seasons of the lunar calendar, "spring", and before the Qin Dynasty, different periods of the first day of the year is not consistent, until the first year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in the first month of the lunar calendar for the first year, after the Xinhai Revolution, the use of the Gregorian calendar to count the year, will be called January 1, "New Year's Day", and will be the first day of the lunar calendar, "New Year's Day". "

The first day of the first month of the lunar calendar is called "Spring Festival".

Every year, people put ancient bottles, vases and other vessels in the case, inserted with seasonal flowers and plants, with auspicious objects to welcome the new year and good luck, and these are also the basic themes of the year. Passed for the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhao Chang made the "year of the morning map" is earlier, more influential, is now hidden in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. By the Qing Dynasty, the year of the map has been prevalent (Ming Xianzong and Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty have painted the year of the map), the end of the Qing Dynasty reached its heyday for the Spring Festival added a lot of festive colors, some people say that the year of the map is a high-level New Year's Eve paintings, not without reason.

Commonly, the New Year's Paintings belong to the still-life paintings from the perspective of Western paintings, which express New Year's wishes through the harmonization of the names of the items in the paintings, folklore symbols or historical tales: painting lilies, persimmons, lingzhi means "all things are as expected," painting magnolias, peonies, and begonias means "Jade Hall of Fortune! "and so on. On the occasion of the New Year, these elegant objects were placed on the desk and depicted, which is the bulk of the New Year's Pilgrimage, often directly titled as "New Year's Pilgrimage". Wang Zengqi in the "years of the Qing for the supply" article said: "'years of the Qing for the supply' is the Chinese painters love to paint the title of the painting. Solicitation, Zhang. One Ba three, two Lu zero Wu. The first is a collection of the most popular paintings of the Ming and Qing dynasties. After the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were especially many paintings with this theme. Ren Bonian painted many of them. In his paintings, what he painted and what he offered in real life were just these: bamboo fruit, plum blossoms, and daffodils. Sometimes, in order to fill in the gaps, two citrons are added to the painting. The word 'citron' harmonizes with the word 'round' for good luck. Narcissus, Lap-mei and Tianzhu are taken for their bright colors. The winds of winter are harsh, and all the flowers wither, so it is a pleasure to sit in a sunny window and increase the brightness of the eyes, which is the joy of the yearly pilgrimage."

Today's Chinese paintings are customarily divided into figures, landscapes, birds and flowers in three sections, that the year should undoubtedly be categorized as birds and flowers (in fact, the so-called "birds and flowers" is the most varied subject matter in the three sections of the subject, such as painting and calligraphy in the system of "fan"). (in fact, the so-called "Bird and Flower Painting" is the most diverse subject matter among the three disciplines, just like the "fan" in the format of calligraphy and painting, in which all shapes other than rectangles can be included). In China's traditional classification of painting subjects, "the year of the dynasty" should be in the category of Bogu Qingwu. "Qingwu" is also known as "Qingwu", "Dictionary" explained as "elegant offerings", "three friends", "Four Gentlemen", Narcissus, calamus, lilies, persimmons, Buddha's hand, pomegranates, etc., as well as alabaster pots, water pots, vases, gold and stone, paintings and calligraphy, antiques, bonsai, scrolls, Pokugaku racks, etc. (a variety of materials of ancient artifacts, also known as the "Pokugu"), as long as "Containing the meaning of good praise and good prayer" (Zhou Shoujuan, "Year-end Morning Offering"), all of them are included. Qi Baishi made the New Year's Day picture, often with firecrackers, teapots into the painting, although not talk about the clear supply, but closer to the reality of ordinary people's lives, so later Wang Xuetao, Guo Weiyan, etc. made the New Year's Day picture of firecrackers, just like to become a "tradition".

Taking an overview of the yearly charts of various families, although the subjects were mostly taken from the desk, they were also colorful and varied, and in brief, there were several kinds of them: firstly, plum blossoms, peonies, lilies and narcissus in the category of flowers, which respectively signified spring and the "Five Fortunes" (the plum blossoms have five petals), wealth and prosperity, a hundred years of good luck and good fortune, and in addition to chrysanthemums, pines, cypresses and lingzhi, all of them had the meaning of longevity; and the chrysanthemums, pines, cypresses and lingzhi, all had the meaning of longevity. In addition, common chrysanthemums, pines, cypresses, ganoderma lucidum, etc. have the meaning of longevity; secondly, persimmons, oranges, lychees, pomegranates, peaches, and cabbages of fruits and vegetables, respectively, imply good will, good fortune, smooth sailing, many children, longevity, and innocence; and thirdly, bats, magpies, quails, roosters, and goats of the animal category, respectively, imply good fortune, good news, abundance, and auspiciousness for promotion and the "five virtues" (literacy, military, courage, benevolence and faith), good luck ("five blessings"), and good fortune ("five petals of the plum blossom). , letter), auspicious ("Xiang" word ancient as "sheep"); Fourth, the artifacts of bottles, Ruyi, Shou Shi, halberd, wine, lanterns, respectively, signifying peace, the whole year as desired, longevity, upgrade, drive away the plague and disease, and add a new generation. In addition, firecrackers, inkstones, antique bronze, etc. in the years of the Qing dynasty offerings also appear in the picture. The above elegant objects appear in the work in combination with each other, and have a superimposed symbolism.

It is worth mentioning that, the year of the dynasty picture is not limited to the performance of desktop offerings, the Spring Festival customs (banquets, sweeping, firecrackers, New Year's Eve, etc.) is also depicted, and there are a number of works have been circulated, but compared with the former, the impact is much smaller.

The beautiful symbolism of the subject matter of the New Year's Day is undoubtedly very attractive to the author-reader, and for the painters, the relative abundance of subject matter (easy to mix and choose) and the relative freedom of expression (can be complicated or simple, can be written, can be color can be ink and watercolor), their enthusiasm for the New Year's Day picture is not difficult to understand.

In modern times, not only did Chinese painters continue to be enthusiastic about New Year's Day paintings, but New Year's Day paintings of other kinds of paintings were also seen from time to time (still as still lifes, with subjects taken from the New Year's Day offerings, such as works by Luce Bailiwick and Lin Fengmian), and works expressing other holiday themes (such as Pan Tianshou's "National Longevity", which is a work with the theme of the National Day) and the New Year's Day paintings are actually the same as those of the New Year's Day paintings. In this way, it seems that the "year" can be extended to other festivals, "picture" is not limited to Chinese paintings.