Historical Investigation Of Weifang New-year Pictures-Alphaon Its Development Of The Ming And Qing Dynasties Evolution

The New Year pictures in Yangjiabu, a form of folk woodblock printing, are widely found inWeifang City, Shandong Province. As a brilliant piece of work in the treasure house of folk art, itis noted both at home and abroad for its regional features and distinctive artistic style. Yangjiabu,a village which is Weifang City, is famous for its New Year pictures. With different styles,Yangjiabu, together with Yangliuqing in Tianjin, and Taohuawu in Suzhou, constitutes the threemajor producing areas of New Year Paintings in China. Over the past centuries, in conformity tothe farmers’thoughts, customs, beliefs, aesthetic conceptions and living necessities, the NewYear pictures have been gradually developed and perfected with primitive simplicity and uniquecharacteristics. Taking roots in people’s daily life, it vividly reflects peoples fine aspirations bydecorating festivals and enriching their cultural life.New Year pictures enjoy a time-honored history. About its origins, there are four mainversions: From Tang Dynasty; from Dongchangfu in Ming Dynasty; from Yangliuqing in earlyQing Dynasty and from Sichun Province in Ming dynasty. Woodblock printings from SichuanProvince in Ming dynasty finally eclipse the other three versions after analysis of each version inthis thesis.Yangjiabu New Year pictures in Weixian County developed and flourished during Ming andQing Dynasties. In this thesis, we lay emphasis on the research of its development in this period.By probing in terms of its subject matters, representative works, culture connotation,classification, manufacture craft and production and sales, we focus on analyzing the pictures’innovation in Qing dynasty in comparison with Ming Dynasty and thus enable people tounderstand it thoroughly.Yangjiabu New Year pictures initially took shape and enjoyed development in MingDynasty. Yet, the subjects of the pictures in Yangjiapu were limited; most of them were jossfigure paintings. Regarding to the theme of the pictures, some were derived from the religiousNew Year pictures such as Kindred ancestry in Three Generations, Shen Tu and Yu Lei the DoorGod. Others originated from folk customs such as Mount Minzishan and the Planting Farmers,etc. There were only a few classifications for the pictures hanging on the front doors, kangs, namely, the warm beds usually seen in rural areas of China and the hall. With features such aswell-proportioned compositions, plain shapes, smooth lines and vivid colors, the pictures showedthe peoples ideal, customs and daily life at that time and imparted a strong sense of rural life aswell as the happiness in Spring Festival. In Ming Dynasty, the productions for the pictures used amethod of wooden overprinting and took four steps: drawing a sketch map, engraving woodenboard, printing by hand and imparting colors. Some galleries engaging in New Year picturesproduction and sales in the same period emerged, such as Tongshuntang, Hengshun, Dashun.Changxing, Jixing, Taihe, Gongmao, Yongsheng. Their business flourished by adhering to theprinciple of sincerity and benevolence and adopting a way of producing according to the salesvolume. This craftsmanship was bequeathed to the future generations with high confidentiality.With development and innovation due to comprehensive factors, New Year pictures inYangjiabu enjoyed great boost and prosperity in Qing Dynasty. In the period, the New Yearpictures touched upon various aspects of people life, including 5 main kinds, namely people’saspiration for happiness and avoidance of misfortunes, such as god of door, wealth, longevityand kitchen; folk customs such as the celebration of New Year, wedding and harvest; festivethemes such as pictures reflecting abundant wealth many descendants; ancient legends such asBaogong, an honest and upright official in Song Dynasty, taking office, Liubei, the king of StateShu in the Three-kingdoms dynasty, paying three visits to Zhu Geliang’s cottage, his primeminister and chief advisor as well as the 8 immortals crossing the sea; blossom flowers andenchanting scenery such as roosters, which carry a meaning of success and blessings in ancientChina and typical plants and birds in each season. Aspirations for happiness and wealth remainthe dominant theme in this period of time with an involvement in other themes that reflect dailylife and satire the society. On the basis of the art of Ming dynasty, the New Year pictures of Qingdynasty gave full play to the artistic uniqueness by adopting metonymy, analogy, pun, symboland homophonic with ingenious ideas, exaggerated characters, multi-colors, succinct lines andvivid images. In addition to its diverse contents, more places are available to hang the New Yearpictures. According to this feature, they can be divided into door paintings, window paintings,Central Scroll paintings, god paintings and other practical and decorative paintings. Basicallyfollowing the craftsmanship of Ming dynasty, the New Year pictures in Qing dynasty made a fewchanges in the source and processing of pigments, printing materials as well as tools. Innovationwas also made by adopting the drawing-printing combined method, an initiative of YangliuqingNew Year in the same period. In addition to the operating agency——retail stores, there also emerged large-sized stores specializing management and sales and stores operating in otherplaces. Yangjiabu finally win a niche in the three main producing areas of New Years pictures forits expanding sales and far-reaching influence.