What is the origin of New Year pictures?

The origin of New Year pictures: New Year pictures were formally formed in the Northern Song Dynasty. At the end of the year, Bianjing (now Kaifeng, Henan Province), Lin 'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province) and other places began to print and sell woodcut New Year pictures, with greatly expanded themes, including customs, operas, beautiful women and dolls.

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.

Woodblock New Year pictures in the Southern Song Dynasty are more abundant. 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.

The Cultural Value of New Year Pictures

In a society with agriculture as the main mode of production, New Year pictures have experienced thousands of years of historical changes, but as a folk belief, their cultural value system has not been interrupted, showing a cultural value orientation that is in harmony with official orthodox culture.

1. Auspicious theme is the concept of * * in the creation of Chinese New Year pictures. China folk New Year pictures, no matter in subject matter, artistic form or expression technique, have the most basic functions of expressing auspiciousness, blessing and exorcism, and become the most vital, popular and user-and-audience-friendly paintings. With the development of history, the themes of New Year pictures are constantly enriched and developed.

Secondly, the modeling of New Year pictures comes from the accumulation of thousands of years of ancient culture in China, from the collective aesthetic consciousness formed by the specific social structure in rural areas of China, and from the unique thinking mode and modeling consciousness of folk artists.