New Year Paintings of Traditional Chinese Folk Art

New year paintings (new year paintings), a kind of Chinese painting. Beginning with the ancient "Door God Painting" during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, it was formally called New Year paintings, which is a unique genre of painting in China, and also a popular art form among the rural people in China. Most of them are used for posting on New Year's Day to decorate the environment, and contain the meaning of blessing the New Year with good luck and celebration, hence the name. Traditional folk New Year's paintings are mostly made of watermarks on wooden boards. The main places of origin are Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Taohuayu in Suzhou and Weifang in Shandong, etc. Shanghai has "month card" New Year's paintings, and there are other places such as Sichuan, Fujian, Shanxi, Hebei and even Zhejiang. Old New Year's paintings due to the size and processing of the number of different titles. The whole sheet of large called "Gongjian", a paper of three called "Sancai". Processing more and more detailed called "painting Palace tip", "painting Sanjai". Those painted with gold powder are called "Jin Gongjian" and "Jin Sanjai". Products made before June are called "green version" and those made after July or August are called "autumn version".

Traditional New Year's Paintings are mainly woodcut and watermarked, pursuing a simple style and lively atmosphere, and thus the lines of the paintings are simple and the colors are vivid. The contents of the paintings include birds and flowers, fat children, golden chickens, spring cows, myths, legends and historical stories, etc. They express people's prayers for a good harvest and their longing for a happy life, and they have a strong national character and local flavor.

The four famous "hometowns" of Chinese New Year paintings are: Mianzhu New Year paintings, Taohuayu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong. The New Year paintings produced in these places are very popular among people in both urban and rural areas.

New Year's paintings are called by different names in different places, Beijing is called "painting piece" and "Wei painting", Suzhou is called "painting sheet", Zhejiang is called "flower paper", Fujian is called "flower paper", Fujian is called "flower paper", and Fujian is called "flower paper". Flower paper", Fujian called "talisman", Sichuan called "Doufang" ...... to name a few. Today, all over the New Year's paintings gradually agreed to be shortened to "New Year's paintings".

Nianhua is a folk craft of the Chinese nation to pray for blessings and welcome the new year, is a form of folk art that carries the people's visions of a better future. Historically, the folk of the New Year's paintings have a variety of names: the Song Dynasty called "paper painting", the Ming Dynasty called "painting stickers", the Qing Dynasty called "paintings", until the Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty, the literati Li Guanting wrote in his article During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, the literati Li Guangting wrote in an article: "After sweeping the house, we put up New Year's paintings, which is a child's play." The name "nianhua" (New Year's Paintings) was thus given to it.

Nianhua paintings have simple lines, bright colors, and a warm and pleasant atmosphere, such as the spring bull, the year of the morning, Jia Sui Tu, the play of the baby, the family, watching lanterns, fat dolls, and so on, and there are gods and goddesses, historical stories, and drama characters as the subject matter. Quite a lot of them are used as door paintings for posting, mixed with the concept of "deities protecting the house", such as "Shentian Yubi", "Tianguan", "Qin Qiong Jingde", etc. The genre (or style) of the paintings is very different from that of the other paintings, which are made by the same artists. "The genre (or form) of these paintings includes door paintings (single and folio), four-panel strips, and horizontal and vertical single-panel strips. Song Dynasty has been recorded on the New Year's Paintings, the earliest woodblock prints seen is the Southern Song Dynasty engraved and printed "Sui dynasty fair presenting the country's face". In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, it was especially popular. After the founding of the country, the New Year's paintings in the traditional basis of innovation, colorful, more popular with the people.

The art of New Year's Paintings is the forerunner of Chinese folk art, and at the same time, it is also a reflection of the history, life, beliefs and customs of Chinese society. Whenever the Lunar New Year to buy two New Year's paintings pasted on the door, almost every family is so, from the door to the hall, are plastered with a variety of flowers, symbolizing good luck and wealth of New Year's paintings, the reason why the New Year is full of joyful and lively atmosphere, New Year's paintings play a role in this. By and large, the more affluent people, in the hall room always like to hang the old life star, purple star, fortune, fortune, life, and so on. As for the plum orchids, bamboo and chrysanthemums and other birds and flowers, nature is also welcome.

Thousands of years, not only is the New Year's Eve a colorful embellishment, or cultural circulation, moral education, aesthetic dissemination, the carrier of faith and tools; is also a look at the map to read type of reading material for the public; for that type of current events subject matter of the New Year's Eve, but also a kind of media, a hundred happy to hear and see. The content of this encyclopedic folk art, encompassing the spirit of a complete Chinese folk.

Nianhua is also a dictionary of regional cultures, from which you can find the distinctive cultural personality of each region. These individuality factors can be identified not only in the content of the subject matter, but also from the customary style, color, line and different taste of the plate of each region of origin of the Chinese New Year paintings. By the Chinese New Year paintings can recognize all the Chinese folk.