Woodblock New Year paintings are a form of folk art of the Han nationality with a long history in China. Liangping woodblock New Year paintings in Liangping County, Chongqing City, are one of the "three wonders" of folk art Liangping (bamboo curtains, New Year paintings, and lantern operas). They are a kind of painting art drawn by the people in Liangping County to celebrate the New Year. They have a history of about 300 years and have profound cultural, historical and academic value. On May 20, 2006, the heritage was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. Liangping woodblock New Year paintings in Liangping County, Chongqing City, are one of the "three wonders" of folk art Liangping (bamboo curtains, New Year paintings, and lantern operas). They are a kind of painting art drawn by the people in Liangping County to celebrate the New Year. They have a history of about 300 years and have profound cultural, historical and academic value. Liangping New Year paintings use romantic techniques and bold artistic refinement, with themes such as exorcising evil spirits and bringing in fortune, celebrating auspiciousness, and historical stories. The pictures are full and concise, the shapes are simple and rough, the expressions are vivid, the composition is complete, and the contrast is strong. As a color woodcut print, it has extremely high artistic value. In the southwest region, Liangping woodblock New Year paintings are as famous as Mianzhu New Year paintings in northwest Sichuan and Jiajiang New Year paintings in southern Sichuan. It is one of the three famous New Year paintings in Sichuan history. Together with Liangping bamboo curtains and Liangshan lantern opera, it is known as the "Three Wonders of Liangping". It was once praised as a wonder in eastern Sichuan and was rated as one of the top ten folk arts in Bayu in 2000. However, the long-renowned Liangping woodblock New Year paintings are on the verge of extinction. 3 Tracing the origin Liangping woodblock New Year paintings are said to have originated during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. They were quite developed during the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods of the Qing Dynasty and reached their peak during the Republic of China. According to the Liangshan County Chronicles (10 volumes, engraved in the 20th year of Emperor Guangxu’s reign in the Qing Dynasty), the following description is given in the etiquette and folk customs of Liangping’s door god paintings: “On the 23rd and 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, sweep the house and ‘worship the community’ at night.” It is said that the Kitchen God reports the good and evil deeds of the world to heaven on this day, so people pray to him. On New Year’s Eve, the door gods are changed and spring stickers are made. Pig heads, chickens, and fish are used to worship ancestors and welcome the Kitchen God. Firecrackers are set off, and the young and the old gather together to drink wine, which is called “keeping the year.” Liangping woodblock New Year paintings were created with the evolution of social customs and developed with the development of printing technology. At that time, Liangshan Pingjin Shop (now Liangping Pingjin Town) developed into hundreds of workshops, with more than a thousand types of paintings, and every family carved woodblocks and painted in red and green. Development Liangping Pingjin Town first appeared in 1536 to print red paper. At that time, the printing house used ink to print single patterns and gods on red paper to meet the needs of people’s weddings and funerals, and later began to produce New Year paintings. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, a guild was established in the New Year painting industry. Both workshop owners and workers could participate. It was called the "Meige Association". The owners of paper dyeing and New Year painting workshops donated money to build the "Meige Temple". Every year on the 16th day of the sixth lunar month, the meeting was held to worship Master Meige, discuss and decide all matters of the guild, elect the general manager and the year manager, and coordinate all matters within the industry. In the Qing Dynasty, Liangping woodblock New Year paintings were "famous in Beijing and the province" and sold well in Southeast Asia. According to the "Liangping County Chronicles", during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, branches were set up in Yichang, Shashi, and Hankou, and the products were sold to Shaanxi, the southwest, and the Yangtze River Basin, and they were very popular. According to investigations, the New Year painting workshops in Pingjinpu at that time included "Yuanxinghao", "Xinlihao", "Zhengxinghao", "Hengtaizheng", "Dehetai", "Fengxiangyun", "Wangyaomenshen" and so on. "The gentlemen in Pingshi are idle, the officials are green and yellow, and there are also famous places in Beijing and the province, hooking gold, water, Jia and earth door gods." This bamboo poem is about the prosperity of Liangping New Year paintings in the Qing Dynasty. Heyday From 1913 to 1934, Liangping New Year paintings entered their heyday, producing millions of pieces every year. In addition to meeting the needs of local farmers for New Year goods, they were also exported to Shashi, Yichang, Wuhan, Hanzhong, Guiyang and other places. In the early years of the Republic of China, a man named Wang brought the New Year painting printing industry to Yuanbayi (now Liangping Yuanyi Town), and his name was "Kunfahao". Due to the numerous New Year painting handicraft workshops, Pingjin and Yuanyi gradually formed a prosperous "Shuafang Street". Liangping County has more than 30 workshops, many New Year painting handicraft workshops, small ones have 20 to 30 artists, large ones have 40 to 50 people, and hundreds of practitioners. New Year pictures developed from monochrome to multi-color overprinting, and on this basis, they were hand-painted. The craftsmanship changed from simple to complex, and the varieties continued to enrich, making it one of the famous New Year picture production areas in the country. In those days, half of the town was workshops and shops, and the other half was inns, teahouses, and wine shops. During the peak season for New Year picture orders and sales, merchants from all over the country gathered, and it was known as "Little Chongqing". The typical painting house has a shop in front and a workshop in the back, divided into two floors. There are many stairs on the ground floor leading to the upper floors for the transportation of materials required for each process; the second floor is connected as a workshop, and craftsmen line up according to the production process of New Year pictures, and work in an assembly line. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was collected by museums in the Soviet Union, the United States, France and other places, and became famous at home and abroad. At the end of the 20th century, large-scale picture albums such as "Complete Collection of Chinese Art", "Complete Collection of Chinese Folk Art", "Three Gorges Folk Art" and "Folk New Year Pictures" all included traditional Liangping woodblock New Year pictures. With the changes in history, Liangping New Year pictures gradually declined, and the handicraft workshops also stopped production in 1958. 4 Varieties and Contents Liangping New Year paintings are divided into four categories: parallel imports, consigned goods, Qingzhang, and flower paper. They are painted with gold and silver, and are combined with paintings and seals. Liangping woodblock New Year paintings are colorful but not vulgar, gorgeous and rich, and lively in form. The contents are mostly door gods, opera stories, myths and legends, and various auspicious patterns. The contents of Liangping woodblock New Year paintings can be roughly divided into three categories. The first is door gods, mainly including works such as "Generals and Commanders", "Standing Swords and Axes", "Promotions and Promotions", "Whips", and "Five Sons Passing the Imperial Examination"; the second is myths and legends, mainly including works such as "Mouse Marrying a Daughter" and "Qilin Sending a Child"; the third is opera stories, mainly including works such as "Silang Visiting His Mother", "Stepping on Umbrellas", and "Zhong Kui Marrying His Sister". Liangping County also produces various types of flower paper, flower paper, and door paintings. 5 Artistic Features The paper used in Liangping woodblock New Year paintings is white bamboo handmade paper produced in the local Baili Bamboo Sea. It is also called two-yuan paper. After the painter draws the draft, the engraving craftsman pastes the draft completely on the smooth pear wood board with glutinous rice pounded into a paste, and then carves the main outline according to the draft, and then carves various color plates according to the line plate, one color per plate, with uniform thickness of lines, clear, upright and tense. In terms of painting techniques, Liangping woodblock New Year paintings not only inherit the process flow and Sichuan carving techniques of traditional watermark woodblock New Year paintings, but also absorb the engraving color techniques of Hui and Jinling schools, and also use the focus 1 in Western painting, skillfully apply yin and yang (light and dark painting method) to distinguish the distance; its composition is full and concise, the characters are exaggerated and deformed, the color contrast is strong, the movement and stillness are properly handled, and the shape is simple and rough, which makes people unforgettable. Liangping woodblock New Year paintings are different from the artistic processing method of Sichuan Mianzhu woodblock New Year paintings, which are mainly painted. Instead, they adopt the expression method of mainly woodblock printing and slightly painted in parts. For example, when the painter is drawing the portrait of a person, the shape of the facial features is unique; the distance between the two black eyeballs is very close, like "looking at each other", but the eyes are bright and energetic, making the image of the person particularly majestic; in addition, the facial features of the person, such as the upper edge of the eyebrows or eyes, the inner part of the temples, are all hand-painted with large black ink blocks, and at the same time, several parallel ink lines are drawn on the lower edge or outer side of the two. This combination of lines and surfaces with different thicknesses and densities forms a three-dimensional intermediate tone with strong contrast and distinct rhythm. When dealing with the nose, folk craftsmen usually use a special nose outline plate that is small on the top and large on the bottom like a wooden pestle, print the ink line in the center of the face, and then use it as a reference to draw the facial features one by one, and then apply two red lines on the lower part of the cheeks. This is the unique artistic feature of Liangping woodblock New Year paintings. Usually, folk artists will apply two red strokes with a brush when the face is about to dry, or simply use their fingers instead of brushes, dip them in ochre red and then a little white wine, and quickly apply them. In this way, the color of the entire face can still stand out clearly in the strong contrast. Especially in the door god paintings, the majestic image of the gods is well amusing and lifelike, and the festive and peaceful atmosphere is suddenly increased. The detailed depiction of the face and the lively treatment of the oval blush in Liangping New Year paintings contrast with the regularity of woodblock printing, which is witty, humorous, and interesting, making it unique in Chinese folk New Year paintings. In terms of color application, Liangping New Year paintings have exquisite craftsmanship, superior raw materials, bright and eye-catching colors, solemn and calm, and the colors will not fade after being preserved for many years. The lines are combined with hand-painted and color watermarks, with uniform thickness, clear and upright, thin but not weak, and vigorous. Craftsmen have a color matching formula of "red with green, tender and solid; red with yellow, happy and cheerful". In order to achieve this rich, heavy and contrasting color effect, soft colors (taken from various dyeing plants, light and soft after adding powder) and hard colors (ground from various colored minerals, with thick and rich colors) are used at the same time. The tones are divided into yin and yang (cold and warm colors), and the main color blocks and sparse and dense color blocks are properly matched. Under the superposition and misprinting during multiple plate printing, the colors of the picture are rich and harmonious, which is in line with the saying of folk New Year paintings that "more colors are not chaotic, and less colors are not monotonous". Liangping New Year paintings have full and simple composition, and sparse and dense, virtual and real, static and dynamic correspond to each other. Some door god paintings usually add one to five children at the lower corners on both sides, and the whole picture looks stable and balanced. "Heroes have no necks, beauties have no shoulders, literati are like nails, and warriors are like bows." The characters in Liangping New Year paintings are quaint and graceful, and their expressions are vivid. Especially the characters in door god paintings, the heads are exaggerated as much as possible to highlight the facial features, and the lower limbs are shortened. The whole body is only three or four heads long, which looks thick and solid, stable and fierce. In terms of subject matter, whether it is depicting customs and human feelings, or folk stories and opera myths, they are all full of a strong breath of life. 6 Inheritance Significance As the only place of New Year paintings in Chongqing, Liangping New Year paintings are famous at home and abroad for their unique historical value, academic value and unique artistic charm. The works are seasonal, regional, collective, national, inherited and variable. Many traditional New Year paintings are closely related to myths and opera stories. Most varieties have a long history of development, and in the process of development, they have integrated orthodox (official) and foreign cultural influences, and gradually become highly ornamental art commodities. During the Anti-Japanese War, many paintings were taken to national museums in the Soviet Union, the United States, France and other countries or collected by oriental art enthusiasts. However, with the changes in the modern social environment, folk customs have also changed greatly. Against this background, Liangping woodblock New Year paintings gradually faded out of people's lives, some New Year paintings and engraving treasures were scattered among the people, some inheritors died one after another, and the New Year painting skills were lacking successors and were on the verge of extinction, and urgently needed to be rescued and protected. The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 20, 2006, the heritage was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Liangping woodblock New Year paintings have experienced the impact of the "Four Cleanups", the "Cultural Revolution" and modernization. The craft inheritors who are still alive are Tu Guofa, Xu Jiahui, Quan Changming and Liu Yong. Liangping Woodblock New Year Paintings Liangping County Cultural Heritage Protection Center 12514960 New Year Paintings