Briefly describe the development 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.

In the Ming Dynasty, the prosperity of novels and opera illustrations greatly promoted the development of New Year pictures, which meant that auspicious days and expressions of folk customs were valued. The creation, printing, purchase and posting of New Year pictures have gradually developed into holiday activities to decorate and beautify the environment, and some typical themes of New Year pictures, such as "harmony", "celebrating the birthday of the Eight Immortals" and "all the best", tend to be stereotyped. The invention of short-version arch flower technology makes the printing of New Year pictures more colorful.

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.

Qing Dynasty is the heyday of New Year pictures. The social situation in the period of Kang and Gan laid a solid foundation for the prosperity of New Year pictures. The popularity of popular novels provides rich creative materials for a large number of New Year pictures workshops. One of the most important characteristics of New Year pictures in the early Qing Dynasty is that there are many themes, and a large number of works with historical stories, myths and legends, opera characters and romance novels as the main contents have appeared. In the form of expression, influenced by Matteo Ricci, Lanzining and other western painting styles, the Western perspective techniques of light and shade were applied in the creation of New Year pictures, and some works were also engraved with the words "imitating the western brushwork", so the New Year pictures became a window for the west wind to spread eastward in the Qing Dynasty.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the rural New Year pictures market was greatly impacted, and the traditional New Year pictures gradually declined. At the same time, in Shanghai, Tianjin and other cities, improved New Year pictures with new themes and styles have appeared, including resisting the invasion of foreign powers, advocating patriotism and depicting new things. At this time, the import of western paintings and the development of business produced the Moon brand New Year pictures, which combined the meticulous brushwork of Chinese painting with the western charcoal watercolor. Its themes include opera stories, auspicious celebrations, and some fashionable beauties with low style.

During the period of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, New Year pictures which expressed revolutionary contents in the form of folk New Year pictures appeared in the liberated areas. In the hard years of the war, they inspired the morale of the army and civilians and hit the enemy.