What is a New Year picture?

"New Year Pictures" is a unique painting genre in China. It is a folk handicraft that Chinese people pray for good luck and welcome the New Year, and it is also a reflection of our society's history, life, beliefs and customs. New Year pictures originated from the door-god paintings in Yao Shunyu, which were called paper paintings in Song Dynasty, painting stickers in Ming Dynasty and pictures in Qing Dynasty. Until the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, Li Guangting wrote in his article: "After cleaning the house, New Year pictures will be posted. This is for children to play." Therefore, it is justified.

Traditional New Year pictures are mainly woodcut watermarks. Due to the pursuit of simple style and lively atmosphere, their lines are simple, their colors are bright, and their atmosphere is warm and pleasant, reflecting the cheerful mood of people praying for the New Year everywhere. Themes include flowers and birds, fat children, golden roosters, spring cattle, myths and legends, historical stories and dramatic figures. It expresses people's longing for a bumper harvest and a happy life, and has strong national characteristics and local flavor.

Mianzhu New Year Pictures in Sichuan, one of the folk woodblock New Year Pictures in China, is named after Mianzhu in Sichuan, the hometown of bamboo and paper, and is popular in southwest China. Most of them use wood blocks to print the outline and then fill in the color. It reflects the optimistic thoughts and feelings of Bashu people and ancient national customs.

Suzhou Taohuawu New Year Picture is a folk woodcut New Year Picture in the south of the Yangtze River, which mainly shows the traditional aesthetic contents of China folk, such as auspicious celebration, folk life, opera stories, flowers and birds, fruits and vegetables, and exorcism.

Tianjin Yangliuqing New Year Pictures belong to woodcut prints, which are lively, auspicious and full of touching themes. Together with Suzhou Taohuawu New Year Pictures, it is also called "South Peach Blossom and North Willow".

The New Year pictures in Weifang, Shandong Province have a wide range of themes, rich imagination, reuse of primary colors and simple style, which directly expresses the simple subjective wishes of working people.

Mianzhu in Sichuan, Taohuawu in Suzhou, Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Weifang in Shandong are known as the four "Hometowns of New Year Pictures" in China.