Woodcut New Year pictures (Zhang Qiu's Woodcut New Year pictures)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: woodcut New Year pictures (Zhang Qiu's Woodcut New Year pictures)

Applicant: Yanggu County, Shandong Province

Project No.: 841

Project No.: Ⅶ - 65

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Shandong Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Yanggu County, Shandong Province

Protection unit: Yanggu Cultural Center

Introduction to woodcut New Year pictures (Zhang Qiu woodcut New Year pictures)

Applicant: Yanggu County, Shandong Province

Woodcut New Year picture is a popular traditional art style for Chinese people to welcome the new year and receive blessings on the occasion of new year's festival. It conveys the life ideals of the general public, reflects many characteristics of social life and folk culture, and becomes an important part of Chinese folk art. Woodblock New Year pictures are printed by traditional woodblock watermarking method, which is closely related to woodblock printing. Woodcut New Year pictures have a long history. It is said that they appeared in the Han Dynasty. They were called "Paper paintings" in the Song Dynasty and "Huatie" in the Ming Dynasty. They were officially named "New Year pictures" in the Qing Dynasty. In the course of thousands of years of development, a number of relatively concentrated woodblock New Year pictures producing areas have gradually formed. Each producing area not only maintains the technical exchange relationship with other regions, but also maintains its own originality in theme and form. From the perspective of subject matter, woodcut New Year pictures can be divided into five categories: driving away evil spirits, praying for good fortune, drama and legend, festive decoration, and living customs. The main styles include Gongjian, Zhongtang, duiping, Lihua, Kangwei, etc. Woodcut New Year pictures have various techniques and bright colors, and have various styles due to regional differences. It has high aesthetic taste, distinctive artistic features, large information carrying capacity, and contains profound national psychology and traditional humanistic concepts.

Yanggu County of Shandong Province is located in Luxi Plain, on the North Bank of the Yellow River, which belongs to Liaocheng City of Shandong Province. It has been hundreds of years since Zhang qiumu's new year prints were introduced into Yanggu County in Yuan Dynasty. Before the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Shanxi people were the main ones who opened painting shops in Yanggu, but later they gradually turned to local people.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Zhang Qiuzhen started from maoyong, luxingju, Jingshun and three large painting shops, each of which used more than 1500 reams of printing paper. His woodblock New Year pictures were sold to Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and northeast provinces. After Jingshun and owner Liu Zhensheng moved the shop to Liaocheng and managed New Year pictures in the name of "Zhang qiujingshunhe", "Zhang qiujingshun", "Dongchang Jingshun" and "Laodian Jingshun", which promoted the development of Dongchang woodcut New Year pictures. During the Anti Japanese War, Yan Junzhen, the owner of yuanmaoyong, together with other art shops, created a number of woodcut New Year pictures with new contents in cooperation with the artists of the Hebei Shandong Henan Federation of literary and art circles, which greatly stimulated the Anti Japanese enthusiasm of the local patriotic army and people.

Zhang qiumu's new year prints have novel themes and various forms, with more than 300 varieties. It has fine engraving, exquisite printing, smooth and concise lines, and full and even composition. The characters are characterized by exaggeration and simplicity, unique modeling, narrow and long eyes, clear eyelid lines, thin and narrow bridge and wings of nose. The main colors of the picture are bright green, bright red, two red, big green, magenta green, red, yellow and blue.