Is the unique folk art form in China paper-cut or New Year pictures?

China's unique folk art form is New Year's Picture, which is a kind of painting in China. It started from the ancient "Door God Painting" and is one of the folk arts and crafts in China. New Year pictures are unique to China, and they are also an art form loved by rural people in China. Most of them are used for posting in the New Year, decorating the environment and wishing the New Year auspicious and festive, hence the name New Year Pictures.

New Year pictures began with the ancient "door-god paintings", which were closely related to the two themes of exorcism and blessing in the early days. Traditional folk New Year pictures are mostly made of woodcut watermarks. With the rise of printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to the theme of door gods, but has become rich and colorful.

The origin of new year pictures

New Year pictures originated in Han Dynasty, developed in Tang and Song Dynasties and prevailed in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

New Year pictures were formally formed in the Northern Song Dynasty. At that time, prosperous commerce and handicrafts, increasingly mature block printing and rich folk New Year greeting activities provided good social conditions for the development of New Year pictures. At the end of the year, Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan) and Lin 'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang) began to print and sell woodcut New Year pictures, and themes such as customs, operas, beautiful women and dolls began to appear. Woodblock New Year pictures in the Southern Song Dynasty are more abundant.

The Yuan Dynasty is the low point of New Year pictures, and most of them are the continuation of similar New Year pictures in the Song Dynasty. At this time, there appeared a kind of moon card painting called "99 Cold Relief Map", which was used by later generations.