| With its distinctive features, unique colors, various types, careful carving and its owndevelopment system, Liaocheng Zhangqiu woodblock new year picture is not only a formof art that is loved by people in daily life but also has great artistic value. Therefore,history experts once consider it together with Tianjin Yangliuqing, Suzhou Taohuawu andKaifeng Zhuxian Town as the Four Great Woodblock New Year Picture Bases of Ming andQing Dynasties. At the same time, it is the prototype of Liaocheng folk arts and crafts,equal with Dongchang gourd carving, paper cut, clay sculpture and writing brush, and soon. In2006,it was enlisted as the First Batch of Liaocheng Municipal Intangible CulturalHeritage and the First Batch of Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage of ShandongProvince. In2008, it was enlisted by the State Council as the Second Batch of NationalIntangible Cultural Heritage.ZhangQiu wooden New Year painting has a history of600years since it was broughtinto ZhangQiu town, YangGu county, Shandong province from south of Shanxi province inYuan dynasty and especially it reached a prosperous level. At that time a large amount ofpaintings were printed up to more than2,800reams of paper. In addition, painting stores inthis town are always the biggest hosts who are at last able to make the biggest profits.People start to print paintings in lunar August and at the beginning of November.Thousands of merchants come to this town for the whole winter. New Year paintings weresold to the west of Shandong province as well as Taian, Jinan and some other cities. What’s more, they can even be sold far to some other provinces like Shanxi, Henan, Hebei andnortheast of China, from which we can see clearly how wide the ZhangQiu influence andalso its popularity among the public.To protect, utilize, develop and pass, through non-material cultural heritage turns outto be a necessity for the inheritance and development of excellent national culturetraditions, prosperity of socialist advanced culture and the creation of cultural variety. It isalso an urgent historic mission that can not wait for even a quarter. However, no systematicresearch has been carried out on Zhang Qiu wooden New Year painting until now. With the rapid advancement of modernization, urbanization, information as well as the integrationand invasion of alien culture, great changes have had happened to the way people live, act,think especially in the perspective of fine art appreciation. Besides, lacking awareness forprotection from related functional departments and protection funds also contributed tothese changes. What’s more, owning to people in modern society eagerly pursuingmaterial interests and inadequate heirs in the folk, some nonmaterial culture heritages arebeing in the peril of extinction.From the exploration of the wood engraving picture by ZhangQiu, we aim to basicallymake clear the origin and development, variety and quantity, distribution and inheritance,as well as the current situation of existence and conservation of wood engraving picture byZhangQiu. We make this research project with the expectation that the development andinheritance of this folk art will draw sufficient attention from both the government and thesociety, to make the old folk art go through innovation and reformation under the conditionof conservation, meanwhile to let it absorb modern elements and use materials so as tocreate pictures with lasting vitality, which not only reflect traditional ideas, but alsoconform to aesthetic taste of modern people. |
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