Characteristics of Foshan New Year Paintings

Foshan woodblock prints are a special form of local activities, reflecting the historical roots of Foshan's local Han culture as well as some of the basics of Foshan's traditional folk painting and printing crafts. Compared with the New Year paintings of other places, Foshan Woodblock Printing absorbs the essence of traditional crafts such as Foshan paper-cutting, copper chiseling and gold flower, gold lacquer wood carving, etc., and is printed in four-color woodblock overprints in red, green, yellow and black. It is expressed by techniques such as brush painting and gold dust hooking, which makes the picture more opulent and glittering. The image is fine and full, the lines are rough and powerful, and the red color is warm and colorful, meaning good luck, therefore, Foshan woodblock prints have the reputation of being red for ten thousand years.

Foshan woodblock prints use red dan, gold and silver colors to strengthen the decorative effect of the picture. Red color indicates festivity and good fortune, and red dan is a famous local specialty of Foshan. Foshan New Year paintings are overprinted with red, orange red, yellow and green colors, and gold and silver patterns are painted on the armor and robes of the characters, which makes the painting of the gods and elephants more brilliant. Foshan New Year's paintings have rough lines, concise and powerful, full composition, rich in decoration, forming a unique local style.

The custom of posting New Year's paintings in the Spring Festival has a long history. Before the Ming Dynasty, people used stone carvings of tigers and lions to put in front of the door to show that the demonstration to ward off evil spirits. Since the rise of New Year's paintings, people in the waxing moon after the 24th, they began to post spring couplets, spring and door painting, folk commonly known as sticking the door god, in order to drive away evil spirits and good fortune.

Foshan door painting production in the past annual output of more than 1 million, both urban and rural areas are happy to use. 1966, Foshan New Year's Eve was denounced as "feudal superstitious products" stop production. 1975 after the resumption of production, mainly for export. Nowadays, the city residents stick door painting custom less and less, but the suburbs and counties in the countryside still stick door painting custom.