Woodblock New Year Pictures of Folk Art

There is a village in the northeast of Weifang 10 km. It is the hometown of Yangjiabu, which is as famous as Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Taohuawu in Suzhou. It is also known as one of the three major producing areas of folk woodcut New Year pictures in China. Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures are well-known at home and abroad for their strong local flavor and simple and distinctive artistic style. This year, they were also included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists in China.

On August/0/7, our reporter came to Yangjiabu, Weifang and paid a special visit to Yang Luoshu, the 79-year-old descendant of Tongshunde Painting Shop 19 who was awarded the title of "Master of Folk Arts and Crafts" by the United Nations, and paid tribute to him and the local people.

Our ancestors were all immigrants from Sichuan.

"The world has Yangjiabu first, then Kitchen God". Although this sentence circulated by the people is somewhat exaggerated, the map of the kitchen king made by Yangjiabu Village has a deep fate with ordinary people. At the end of the lunar calendar, people "invite" the new kitchen king who exudes ink fragrance to their home, and then "send" the old kitchen king to the sky, asking him to put in a good word to ensure the peace of the lower world all year round. It's hard to know how long this custom has lasted, but Yangjiabu has been famous for making New Year pictures since ancient times. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, every household should clean their houses and put up brand-new New Year pictures, praying for God to bless happiness and eliminate disasters and misfortunes. This custom has been passed down to this day.

On the south side of Han Wei Highway, there is a very tall and striking archway with three golden characters "Yangjiabu" written on it. Behind the archway is the world-famous Yangjiabu Village. The reporter found that on both sides of the road behind the archway, there are large and small New Year picture shops and kite shops, one next to the other. About 200 meters ahead, it is the "Yangjiabu Folk Art Grand View Garden" that shows the customs of Yangjiabu to the outside world and sells tickets.

Yang Tunzhi, 67, and Yang Weixian, 665,438+0, are printing and displaying woodcut New Year pictures in the garden. The two old people introduced that they both learned woodcut New Year pictures from their parents, and both of them have been doing them for nearly 50 years. While working, the old man Yang Tunzhi chatted with reporters about the history of Yangjiabu woodcut New Year pictures: "It is said by the old people that our New Year pictures rose in the early Ming Dynasty and have a history of more than 600 years. Our ancestors moved from Sichuan during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty (1368- 1398). Before I came here, I was engaged in Buddhist scripture carving in Zitong County, Sichuan Province in the Song Dynasty. After coming here, due to the pressure of life and the influence of Shandong politics and Confucius thought at that time, Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures were produced. "

Jiajia flower shop renren painter

Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures have a special creative process, and the completion of a work usually goes through the processes of drawing, engraving, printing and manual processing. All hand-printed, one color and one version. A New Year picture usually has 5 to 7 colors.

Yang Weixian, 6 1 year-old, told reporters that in Yangjiabu, the production of New Year pictures is mainly based on family workshops. A workshop will be printed with a brand of a painting shop, which will be passed down from generation to generation, and the name will never change. The families of these painting shops and workshops, from old to young, have their own strengths. They either painted, carved or printed, and many of them combined eighteen kinds of martial arts. So in Yangjiabu, every family is a painting shop and everyone is a painter.

Artists of New Year pictures are all farmers.

Mr. Ma Zhiqiang, an expert on Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures, said that according to textual research, after the second year of Qin Long in Ming Dynasty (1568), Yangjiabu ancestors set up four painting shops, namely Hengshun, Tongshuntang, Wanchengcheng and Tianheyong, from the early Qing Dynasty to Ganjia (1644- 1800) to Xian 'an.

Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures are all hand-made, from the initial sample, to engraving, engraving and baking, all four sets of techniques are completed by painters and painters. Surprisingly, the artists here are all native farmers. Since19th century, there are more than 30 recorded famous artists in Yangjiabu. For example, Yang Fang, born in 1806, Yang Wanliang born in188/kloc-0, Yang, known as the prodigy king, Yang, born in 1902, who is good at half-printing and half-painting, and Yang Luoshu born in 1927.

Have money but no money to buy paintings for the New Year.

During the interview, the reporter learned that as early as the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures reached their peak. "Every family paints painters and every family prints New Year pictures" and "Hundreds of painting shops and thousands of New Year pictures" are the best portrayal of the prosperity of Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures at that time. "If you have money, you can buy paintings for the New Year", which shows how much Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures were loved by working people at that time. Every New Year's Eve, people will buy back a roll of New Year pictures from Yangjiabu or the market with very little money. The contents of the New Year pictures include cash cow, happiness from now on, Kirin giving away children, Liuhe having the same spring, more than a year and so on. As long as these new year pictures are posted at home, the taste of the year will suddenly come into being, all good yearning and expectation will come into being, and people's hearts will be practical.

Jubilance auspicious New Year pictures theme

Yang Tunzhi told reporters that Yangjiabu's New Year pictures are rich and colorful, including idols, door gods, beauties, golden boys, flowers and birds, opera figures, myths and legends. There are also works that reflect folk life and criticize the shortcomings of the times, but happiness and auspiciousness are the themes of Yangjiabu New Year pictures. Such as auspiciousness, Chinese New Year, congratulations on getting rich, precious splendor, more than a year, happiness and peace. Blessings to relatives and greetings from friends constitute the characteristics of peace and joy of farmers in the new year, as well as their hopes for wealth and peace.

New Year pictures should be big and small.

The reporter learned that Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures were basically completed through overprinting. Generally speaking, it can be divided into four processes: drawing creation, block printing, woodcut overprint and baking. In painting creation, the creator should carefully consider the choice of form, the determination of content and the size of the frame. In creation, Yangjiabu New Year pictures also have some specific requirements, such as: painting is not serious, but good-looking is right; There is a scene in the painting, which is not boring to watch. The requirements for New Year pictures are: New Year pictures should be kind, with big head and small body, clear eyebrows and eyes, and handsome head and face.

Listen to the king of New Year pictures talk about New Year pictures.

Come out from the north gate of Daguan Garden, turn south, and you will see a big blue billboard hanging on the first gate of Luxi Road, which reads "Master of Folk Arts and Crafts Awarded by UNESCO" and "Yangjiabu Tongshunde Painting Shop", and a big lacquer plaque-Tongshunde Painting Shop is hung on the screen wall at home. I heard that the reporter came, and Yang Luoshu, the old man who instructed the workers to print New Year pictures with bare arms, insisted on putting on his coat to show his respect for people. Although the old man is nearly eighty years old, he is neither deaf nor flowery. Talking to reporters about woodblock New Year pictures, his spirit is stronger than that of young people.

Yang, who has been carving for 70 years, has mastered the skill of making New Year pictures, and artistic images with exaggerated shapes, bright colors and unpretentious are constantly born under his carving knife. In recent years, he has carved 24 sets of Complete Works of Emperors, Hundred Years of Water Margin 109 sets, 88 sets of The Journey to the West, Dream of Red Mansions 140 sets, The History of the Three Kingdoms 165438 sets and hundreds of other New Year pictures, just for carving.

Lao Yang proudly told reporters that he has 3,270 various paintings, including almost all the existing New Year pictures in Yangjiabu since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Lao Yang said that during the "Cultural Revolution", many of these paintings were secretly hidden in cellars, woodpiles and pigsty dung for preservation. 1993, Yang Luoshu donated a New Year picture carved more than 500 years ago, together with 50 paintings of Ming and Qing Dynasties, to the Museum of Chinese History for free.

With the progress of social science and technology and the development of market economy, in recent years, most of the younger generation have not studied this ancient folk art, and lack of artists and new works that reflect realistic themes has restricted the development of Yangjiabu woodblock New Year pictures. In order to protect Yangjiabu woodblock New Year Pictures, an ancient folk art, Hanting District has set up Yangjiabu Woodblock New Year Pictures Protection Center, and plans to set up Yangjiabu Woodblock New Year Pictures inheritor training base in Yangjiabu Grand View Garden, set up a high-tech New Year Pictures Museum, so that ancient New Year Pictures can be preserved and displayed, and prepare to set up a memorial hall for dead old artists to dynamically preserve their images and technologies by scientific and technological means.

The producing areas of wei county New Year pictures are concentrated in Yangjiabu and Cangshang Village in Hanting. Among them, the products of Yangjiabu in Hanting (now a county-level district in Weifang) are among the best. Press: Hanting was originally called "Hanting Store" and was the capital of the cold country in ancient times. "Once"? The county records: "In the summer, Han Zhuo was a vassal; The name is sealed in the cold, hence the name. " Wei County in Han Dynasty is unknown, and it is the land of Shou Ping County and Xiami County. In the Sui Dynasty, Wei County was established for the first time, which saved Shou Ping. Hanting New Year pictures are rich in themes, and each workshop has its own paintings without repetition. Even if there is a theme painter between workshops, there are some differences in composition and color. Therefore, there is a broad market for the Han Ting New Year pictures in Wei County. In addition to Shandong counties, the marketing of Hanting woodblock New Year pictures reaches the Yangtze River basin in the south, the south bank of Liaodong Peninsula in the northeast of Bohai Sea in the north and Zhengzhou in Henan Province in the west, which is not only profitable, but also considerable, and there are many pirates in other places, which shows its far-reaching influence.

The color is fresh, the paper is white, and the New Year pictures come from Wuqiang ... Wuqiang County, Hebei Province is known as the "hometown of New Year pictures" and has a history of more than 500 years.

Wuqiang New Year pictures rose in the early15th century, and18th century was its heyday. In its heyday, there were hundreds of painting shops and many painting workshops in dozens of villages in the county. Every year after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the painting market here is very lively. Those New Year pictures hanging on both sides of the street include historical figures, myths and legends, fables and fairy tales, happy birthday greetings, human feelings and customs, children and women, flowers and landscapes, etc. A large number of calendar paintings, door paintings, lamp paintings, window paintings, couplets, strip screens, nave and other New Year pictures are mostly auspicious. Common ones are the picture of a magpie going to Mei, the picture of a spring cow, the picture of a lion rolling an embroidered ball, the picture of farming and weaving, the top ten busy people, the top ten busy people and so on. Recently, popular sofa pictures have been released.

Wuqiang also has a woodblock New Year picture, which is made of Du Mu or pear wood and overprinted with black, red, purple, green, yellow and pink. It is completed through three processes: drafting, carving and printing. Its composition is compact and full, and its carved lines are broad, steady and clear. It not only uses the black and white effect, but also does not lose the simple and simple style. The main craft of Wuqiang woodblock New Year pictures is manual operation, which has traditional world craft characteristics.

Wuqiang New Year pictures create rich effects with simple colors. Colors are strong, rich but not stagnant, although a few colors are varied. Achieve the effect of contrast and unity. This is one of its characteristics. The second feature is that it has high artistic expression in modeling. For example, when depicting characters, focus on the head and eyes, and a few strokes can show people's expressions. Most of the characters are in the middle and close shot, and they appear with a straight face, which is easy to express the feelings of the characters and highlight the story.

Illustrated pictures are also a major feature of Wuqiang New Year pictures, many of which are accompanied by humorous poems and so on.

In recent years, some new year pictures have been improved into high-grade new year pictures with silk-screen lines, population coloring and announcements, and they are framed into paintings and axial paintings with silk edges, which is a treasure.

Wuqiang New Year pictures were named as famous brand products by Hebei Province as early as 1979, and exported to Japan, the United States, France, Germany and Southeast Asian countries.

Tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society, founded in 1958, is famous for researching, creating and publishing Yangliuqing woodblock New Year pictures, with a history of more than 300 years. It is a cultural undertaking business unit under the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Culture, an art book publishing unit approved by the State Press and Publication Administration, and a cultural relic business unit recognized by National Cultural Heritage Administration. Tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society has preserved the New Year pictures and ancient editions since the Ming Dynasty, protected the ancient printing skills of China woodcut New Year pictures, and completely preserved the traditional skills of hook, engraving, printing and painting of Yangliuqing woodcut New Year pictures. Among the existing New Year pictures in China, the Yangliuqing woodblock New Year pictures preserved by Tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society are generally regarded as "the first New Year pictures in China" because of their rich collections, exquisite skills and complete inheritance. At the same time, it communicated international cultural exchanges and exchanges with its unique artistic charm, and became an important representative of China's "Year Culture". Tianjin Yangliuqing woodblock New Year pictures are unique among China folk New Year pictures because of their combination of printing and painting. They are widely used and rich in content, and have a far-reaching impact on various New Year pictures in China. They are called "encyclopedias" among the people. Its content fully shows the essence of working people's pursuit of ideal spirit in life, vividly expresses the civilized aesthetics and survival experience of farming society, and broadcasts the traditional ideological and moral concepts of the Chinese nation to the people. In 2004, Tianjin Yangliuqing Woodblock New Year Pictures were named as "China National Folk Culture Protection Project Pilot Project" by the Ministry of Culture. This exhibition will be performed by an important inheritor of Tianjin Yangliuqing Woodblock New Year Pictures, which was protected at the beginning of the establishment of Tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society. Annex * * * is divided into three parts. Part I: Information. Including the large-scale collection and rescue of Tianjin Yangliuqing woodcut New Year pictures in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, desk materials, file cards, collection credentials, and work summaries at various stages. Part II: Ancient Edition. Show 30 sets of ancient woodcuts from Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. Part III: New Year pictures. About 150 New Year pictures from the Ming Dynasty to the Republic of China were exhibited.

Taohuawu, located under Nagato, a city in northern Suzhou, has been a scenic spot in Suzhou since ancient times. Tang Bohu, a romantic genius in the Ming Dynasty, once built a Peach Blossom Temple here and wrote the Song of Peach Blossom Temple.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the development of Suzhou's urban economy, many craft workshops appeared in Nagato, among which New Year pictures were the most. The folk woodblock New Year pictures made here make Taohuawu famous all over the world. Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures are deeply loved by the world for their rich themes, elegant pictures and delicate colors. Together with Yangliuqing Woodblock New Year Pictures in Tianjin and Weifang Woodblock New Year Pictures in Shandong, they became the representatives of China folk woodblock New Year Pictures in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Suzhou Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures came into being in the Ming Dynasty, forming a unique style. At present, the earliest woodblock New Year pictures in Taohuawu are "Shou Xingtu" included in the Japanese Catalogue of zhina Ancient Prints, and the words "Five Years of Wanli (1597)" are engraved on the pictures. Judging from its pictures, the composition, carving and printing of the works have reached a considerable level. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Suzhou Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures flourished. At that time, there were about forty or fifty painting shops, most of which were located in Taohuawu to Baoen Temple Tower in Qiao Feng, Shantang Street, Tiger Hill and Nagato. Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures have reached more than one million, which are sold to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Shandong, Henan, Northeast China and other provinces, and also exported to Nanyang and other places with merchant ships. His artistic achievements have had a considerable impact on the development of Japanese ukiyo-e painting. At the end of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing army besieged Suzhou, and the production of Suzhou Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures was seriously damaged. Since then, it has been in a state of depression. Until the early 1950s, Suzhou Federation of Literary and Art Circles investigated the situation of Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures and organized artists to resume production. Later, professional painters were equipped and apprentices were recruited, and the "Suzhou Taohuawu Woodblock New Year Painting Society" was established, which made great progress.

Judging from the existing works, the style of early Taohuawu New Year pictures is more elegant. When dealing with themes such as benevolence, scenery and flowers, traditional vertical axes and picture books are often used for composition. In the picture management, we can see the influence of the academy painting in the Song Dynasty, the boundary painting in the Ming Dynasty and the literati painting. During the years of Yongzheng and Qianlong, there were also many works imitating the style of western copperplate prints, such as Wannian Bridge in Suzhou, Nissin in Tao Zhu, Ten Scenes of West Lake, Puji Bridge in Shantang, 360 lines, Baizitu and Sanmeitu. Some of them have also engraved "French-Thai Western brushwork" and "Three Beautiful Pictures" on the screen. These works are brightly colored and focused, except for the faces of people, clothing lines, trees and stones, houses and animal feathers are all expressed in light and shade, which seems awkward. After Qianlong, there were few such works, and they were replaced by works expressed by traditional techniques. Compared with earlier works, the picture composition is simple and generous, the lines are strong and the colors are beginning to become clear. For example, Woods Deng Ke, Biography of Zhuangzi, Pearl Tower, Boating on the Lake, Map of Yue Bai, etc. From these pictures, we can see the influence of seal cutting style of early Jinling School and Xin 'an School.

After the Opium War, the traditional market of Taohuawu New Year pictures has been shrinking due to a large number of lithographs and offset New Year pictures. In order to survive, New Year pictures stores began to shift their sales focus to the countryside. In addition to the original theme, the theme of the work adds a lot of content reflecting rural life and farming. Images are often exaggerated in decoration, and the lines are simple and rigid, especially in the use of colors. Red, pink, yellow, green, purple (or blue, usually purple instead of blue, blue instead of purple) and light ink color make the picture more vivid, lively, decorative and rhythmic. Its artistic style is closer to laborers in temperament, so it is welcomed by farmers. The themes of Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures mainly include the following categories:

(1) Blessing the auspicious, such as harmony and auspiciousness, God bless the people, good fortune and prosperity, longevity and happiness, the celebration of the Eight Immortals' birthday, and the golden rooster announcing the dawn.

(2) To ward off evil spirits such as door gods, kitchen gods, Guan Gong, Zhong Kui, Jiang Taigong, Zhang Tianshi and Zhang Xian;

(3) Current affairs and customs, such as Peace for the Legal Person, Suzhou Train to Wusong, Liu Jun Foucault's Xu Antai Victory, Spring Cattle Map, Ten Beautiful Kicks, Gusu Huanji's Pilgrimage Map, Beauty with Foreign Lights, Family Happiness, and Yellow Cats with Mice;

(4) Drama stories, such as Yang Jiajiang, Loyalty Hall, The West Chamber, The Temple of Heaven in the Monkey King, The Legend of the White Snake, Mu's Sky-Breaking Gate Array, San Xiao's Clouds, Dingjun Mountain, Bitter Tales, Battle of the North Plains, etc.

The frame size of New Year pictures is as big as four feet "nave", as small as five inches "Shenma paper" and two inches "egg noodles". The largest banner has a set of three "panoramic beds", and the smallest is a "smooth surface" of about five inches. Generally, there are three kinds of carved statues, landscapes and scenes for customers to choose from. Traditional Chinese opera stories and New Year pictures are mostly folded banners, which are various and familiar to the masses.