The origin of new year pictures

New Year pictures are auspicious images of ancient China. In the long years, with the evolution of festival customs, the unique symbolic decorative art of China folk has been formed. Its origin can be traced back to the ancient concept of nature worship and belief in gods.

China's early New Year pictures are closely related to two themes: exorcism and praying for good luck. In the process of praying for a bumper harvest, worshipping ancestors, exorcising evil spirits and other holiday customs, the corresponding New Year decorative arts gradually appeared.

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. After the middle of Ming Dynasty, with the further development of commercial handicraft industry and the maturity of color overprint technology in block printing, woodblock New Year pictures developed rapidly, and famous New Year pictures such as Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Yangjiabu in Shandong and Taohuawu in Suzhou appeared.

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The content of New Year pictures is usually healthy, auspicious and beautiful. Such as "Carp yue longmen", "There are plenty of fish every year", "Lucky for wealth", "Happy for your son", "Three friends at the age of cold" and so on.

The content of New Year pictures is constantly evolving with the changes of the times and the development and progress of society. In recent years, in the past, the god of wealth, Fu Lushou Samsung, fairies, fat boys and opera characters were the main contents of New Year pictures. Now, the founding leaders have also become the protagonists of New Year pictures. In recent years, the gold ingots and jewels in the past New Year pictures have also become RMB or even US dollars. To some extent, New Year pictures also reflect the social mentality and people's feelings.

New Year pictures are simple in lines, bright in colors and warm and pleasant in atmosphere, such as pictures of spring cows, New Year's Eve, Jia Sui, playing with babies, family happiness, watching lanterns and fat dolls. Some take immortals, historical stories and dramatic figures as themes.

Mostly used for posting door paintings, mixed with the concepts of "Heaven Tea", "Heaven Official" and "Qin Qiong Respecting Virtue", the genre (or form) includes door paintings (single, folio) and single four-screen.

Baidu Encyclopedia-New Year Pictures