What is the content and significance of New Year pictures?

The moral of New Year pictures is auspiciousness. China's New Year pictures, no matter from the subject matter content or the expression technique, have the meaning of expressing auspiciousness, exorcism and rejoicing. Auspiciousness is the same concept in the creation of New Year pictures all over China. New Year pictures symbolize the history, life, beliefs and customs of China society, and are the first example of folk art in China.

The production methods of New Year pictures generally include hand drawing, block printing, watermark color matching, half-printing and half-painting, lithograph printing, offset printing and so on. Generally speaking, there are four processes in color matching woodblock New Year pictures:

(a), painter draft, draw the draft on raw edges or thin paper to finalize;

(2) The engraver pastes the reverse side of the draft on the planed woodcut board with powder paste to carve a chalk line board, and first prints several chalk lines;

(3) Point out the colors on the drawing, and the engraver will engrave several color overprints (generally no more than five) according to the different colors pointed out;

(4) After the painter prepares ink lines and color swatches, he fixes hundreds of pieces of white paper at the position where the pattern is printed, then puts the drawing swatch back to the left side of the paper, covers the paper on the drawing swatch coated with pigment, and then brushes the paper on the drawing swatch with a brown brush. After that, change to another color plate and print as usual until all the plates are brushed.