The theme of Foshan New Year pictures

There are three kinds of woodblock New Year pictures in Foshan: original pictures, woodcuts and meticulous paintings, including door gods, New Year pictures and statues. Mainly the door gods, the contents are mostly "Shencha, Qin, Weichi Gong, Shouquan, Wuzi's proselytization, official monk's promotion, Tianzi's sending, and Erxian". A wide range of subjects, showing people's hopes and ideals. There are also auspicious patterns, evil spirits, folk customs, opera stories, historical romance stories and so on. Foshan woodcut door paintings are rich in content, and door paintings with different themes and colors are printed according to different provinces, regions and customs. People hang door paintings with different themes according to different places such as gates and doors to express people's pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty.

According to the subject matter, there are three kinds of paintings at the age of 20: door painting, idol painting and folk painting. Their main functions are offering sacrifices, praying for blessings and decorating the environment, which embodies people's desire to exorcise evil spirits and obtain happiness. In the past, the themes of Foshan woodblock New Year pictures were mostly immortals, such as Qin, Weichi Gong, Fu Lu Shou Quan, Money Boy, Hehe Erxian, Tian Ji pine nuts, and other immortals, historical figures, drama stories, etc., with a wide range of contents and extremely prosperous production and sales. In 1950s and 1960s, Foshan woodblock New Year pictures kept pace with the times and created a large number of new year pictures with modern themes, such as Three Red Flags and Women Hold Up Half the Sky, which were also very popular at that time.

Functionally, it is mainly used to decorate the environment, render the atmosphere, and place people's desire to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Influenced by Lingnan traditional culture, Foshan New Year pictures cater to the aesthetic taste and living habits of Foshan people. Most of them are folk belief maps, seasonal maps and custom maps, which are deeply loved by the people.