Development of Liangping Woodblock New Year Pictures

1536, the first red paper printing house appeared in Pingjin Town, liangping county. At that time, the Painting Academy printed a single pattern and gods on red paper with ink to meet the needs of people's weddings and funerals, and later began to make New Year pictures. During the reign of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty (1735–1796), a guild named "Meige Club" was established in the New Year pictures industry, and the owner of dyeing paper and New Year pictures donated money to build the "Meige Temple". It laid the foundation for the development of Liang Ping's New Year pictures.

The earliest New Year picture workshop in Pingjin Town was named "Yuanxinghao" (formerly known as the Brush Workshop). From drawing red paper to making New Year pictures, the tools are simple, the technical level is not high, and there are not many varieties. Door gods are printed on red paper, with red and black colors, and the colors are simple and simple.

In the Zhuzhici written by Lan Xuanqing in the Collection of the Old Sorghum in the early Qing Dynasty, Liang Ping's New Year pictures were described as follows: "Mr. Xianpi Shiping, whose official list is yellow and new, is even more famous in Beijing, and is a door god of golden soil and water." The "Tumen God" mentioned here is Liang Ping's New Year pictures.

Liang Ping's woodblock New Year pictures developed in the period of Kangxi (161-kloc-0/722) and Yongzheng (1722- 1735) in the Qing Dynasty and flourished in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.

In the first year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty (1796), Xu founded "Hao Xinli", and the production of its New Year pictures changed from simple to complex. Use a variety of artistic techniques, mainly color printing, one color per page, overprinter at least five or six times, and more than twelve or thirteen times. The faces of the characters are slightly painted, and most of them are painted with two oval pink cheeks, which is very interesting and rare for other New Year pictures.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, there were forty or fifty workshops of Liangping woodcut New Year pictures, which were concentrated in Ping Jin and Yuan Yi towns, each accounting for half of the streets in the two towns, and were called "half-painted house streets". There are 600-700 employees here, among whom 70-80 people from the "Hao Xinli" family make New Year pictures every day.

From 19 13 to 1934, Liangping woodcut New Year pictures entered its heyday, producing millions of pictures every year, which not only met the demand of local farmers for new year's goods, but also exported to Shashi, Yichang, Wuhan, Hanzhong and Guiyang.

In 1930s and 1940s, Liang Ping's woodblock New Year pictures were collected by museums or oriental art lovers in the Soviet Union, the United States and France, and became famous at home and abroad.

With the change of history, Liangping woodblock New Year pictures gradually declined, and the manual workshop stopped production at 1958.

After the "four clean-ups", "Cultural Revolution" and other previous movements, Liangping woodblock New Year pictures, a folk art form, almost disappeared.

After the Cultural Revolution, cultural policies were adjusted. As a folk art heritage, Liangping woodcut New Year pictures have been put on the rescue agenda.

1978, in order to revitalize the art of Liangping woodcut New Year pictures, liangping county Cultural Bureau began to collect New Year pictures in Ping Jin and other places. Through various efforts, nearly 100 old Liangping New Year pictures of more than 20 varieties were collected.

1982, "Liangping New Year Painting Research Association" was established. Then, the "Research Association" opened the first "Liangping New Year Painting Research and Creation Class". Invited experts and professors to take more than 100 old Liangping woodcut New Year pictures collected as models, organized school art teachers and cultural cadres in the county to copy some old Liangping woodcut New Year pictures, boldly innovated, and created 26 Liangping New Year pictures such as Wulin Hero and Military Commander. After publishing five of them, Chongqing Publishing House set off an upsurge of Liangping woodcut New Year pictures.

Subsequently, several classes of Liangping woodcut New Year pictures were held one after another, and a group of potential artists were recommended to the Academy of Fine Arts for further study, forming a phalanx of talents to promote the development of Liangping woodcut New Year pictures. At this point, Liangping woodblock New Year pictures entered a new historical period. A large number of New Year pictures with both the flavor of the times and the characteristics of Liangping New Year pictures spread to Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places, and six local folk New Year pictures and decal art workshops were also restored.

/kloc-in the autumn of 0/982, Liangping woodblock New Year pictures went out of Liangping area and were exhibited in Chengdu, Chongqing and Wan Wan.

1993 10, sichuan fine arts institute specially invited Liangping New Year Pictures to hold Liangping Folk Art Exhibition in this institute, and Liangping Folk New Year Pictures entered art colleges for the first time.

From 65438 to 0994, Liang Ping's woodcut New Year Pictures, as the main exhibit of the Three Gorges Folk Art Exhibition, went to China Art Museum in Beijing to be exhibited at the same time as the 8th China Art Exhibition, and Liang Ping's woodcut New Year Pictures once again went to the temple to show China's artistic achievements.

At the end of the 20th century, the traditional Liangping woodcut New Year pictures were included in such large picture books as The Complete Works of China Fine Arts, The Complete Works of China Folk Fine Arts, The Three Gorges Folk Fine Arts and Folk New Year Pictures. With the change of modern social environment, great changes have taken place in folk customs. In this context, Liangping woodcut New Year pictures gradually faded out of people's lives, some New Year pictures and woodcut treasures scattered among the people, some inheritors died one after another, and the New Year pictures lacked skills and were on the verge of extinction, which urgently needed rescue and protection.

On February 16, 2005, four special stamps made of four Liangping woodblock New Year pictures began to be distributed nationwide and were included in China Folk Art Stamp Album.

In 2006, Liangping woodblock New Year pictures were listed in the national intangible cultural heritage protection list.