Dongchang woodblock New Year paintings began in the Tang Dynasty and first appeared in the form of door god paintings. Together with Weifang Yangjiabu, they are known as the artistic wonders of the Chinese folk art treasure house, representing the two major systems of Shandong woodblock New Year paintings, the East and the West. The production of Dongchangfu woodblock New Year paintings began in the Ming Dynasty and has a history of nearly 300 years. Dongchang woodblock New Year paintings have the characteristics of integrating New Year paintings and door god paintings, with simple composition and strong overall sense. The characters have narrow eyes, narrow nose bridge and nose wings, and plump and simple images; the lines are strong, smooth and round, with straightness in the arc and hardness in the softness; the colors are soft, bright and simple, and have been included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. History Dongchangfu's book engraving industry is very developed, and the illustration engraving artists in the book engraving industry have created the unique Dongchangfu folk prints. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Shanxi merchants opened three painting shops in Zhangqiu Town, 50 kilometers south of the ancient city of Dongchangfu, to sell New Year paintings and door gods. Later, one of the three, "Liu Zhensheng Painting Shop", moved to Qingxiao Street in Dongguan at that time, and the business of this painting shop developed rapidly. Due to the booming business, similar industries came into being, some moved to Liaocheng from other places, and some operated in various places. At that time, most of these painting shops mainly sold colored paper and stickers, and only sold New Year paintings during the Spring Festival. The production areas of their products were distributed in nearly 20 towns and villages under the jurisdiction of the former Dongchang Prefecture, including Shouzhang, Yanggu, Liaocheng, Tangyi, and Shenxian. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Dongchang Prefecture had produced more than 20 larger stores such as "Wufuxiang". They had strong funds, a wide range of business, and a large number of painting plates in reserve, so they were open all year round. There were more than 20 workshops in Qingxiao Street and Tieta Temple in Dongchang Prefecture, including three large workshops, namely "Xishengheng", "Tongshunhe" and "Tongxingchang". Some of these printmaking workshops started printing in June of the lunar calendar, and some in September and October. The workshops that started the business the latest were the ones that hung up the workshop sign, organized the shop, and prepared goods at the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, and began to operate. Because of the low prices and good quality, the business was booming. Located on the bank of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the fleets traveling north and south carried merchants from all over the country to place orders. Some merchants took the prepared drawings to find engraving artists to print them according to their local customs. Dongchangfu New Year paintings were sold in the counties of western, southern and northern Shandong, as well as Tai'an, Jinan, Weixian and other places, and as far as Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and Northeast China. During the Republic of China period, Dongchangfu woodblock New Year paintings reached their heyday. Features In modern times, due to the abolition of water transport, the interruption of the canal, the construction of the Jinpu and Jinghan railways, Dongchangfu's status as a north-south transportation artery disappeared and became a backward and closed area. The rich and colorful folk art and folk prints have not been inherited and developed in new forms. It is precisely this closed cultural and geographical environment that makes folk art hidden deep in the bottom of society, not valued by modern society, and rarely disturbed by the outside world, upper-class culture and foreign culture, and maintains its original flavor. Dongchangfu woodblock New Year paintings basically belong to the art of farmers themselves. The images in the paintings are simple, natural, concise and pure, and they express the simple subjective wishes of farmers more directly. Many pictures are plot-based, decorative, interesting, and colorful. Such a method of expression is suitable for the appreciation habits and aesthetic tastes of the majority of farmers and citizens, and is also convenient for woodblock printing. Dongchang woodblocks are drawn from a wide range of materials, including farming and weaving pictures describing labor production, small fish family happiness, opera stories, folk legends, and auspicious paintings such as Fu Lu Jiqing. There are two main categories: one is ancient myths, folk legends and historical figures, such as "Tian Xian Pei", "Wu Song Fighting the Tiger", "Zhong Kui", etc.; the other is the selection of auspicious, festive and cheerful auspicious content. Such as "Double Happiness" and "Qilin Sending a Child". The Liaocheng New Year pictures are all printed with woodblocks, with red, yellow, gray, blue and black as the basic colors. The whole picture is colorful and highly decorative. The faces of the characters are not colored, making their images more prominent and eye-catching. Dongchangfu woodblock New Year pictures have always only had "grass plates", that is, only printing without painting, and the whole printing is printed with woodblocks. Dongchang woodblock New Year pictures often use exaggerated hands when shaping characters. Dongchang woodblock New Year pictures use pure color block printing. The characters are exaggerated, with the head being the most prominent, and generally the head accounts for one-third to one-quarter of the body. The facial features are delicate. The eyebrows and eyes are mostly slender, that is, the eyes are straight, the nose is straight, the ears are round and drooping, the clothes are fine and complicated, and the carving is fine. Dongchang woodblock New Year pictures highlight the word "year", which is a must-have for every family during the New Year, so the colors are bright, using the three primary colors, plus green, purple, gold, black, etc. Classification Dongchang woodblock New Year pictures can basically be divided into three categories: the first category is the image of gods, such as Tianjun, Zaojun Quanshen, etc. This type of composition is balanced and stable, and the characters are dignified, kind, and beautiful. The second type is the door god type, which is mostly historical figures, such as Zhang Fei, Zhong Kui, Guan Yu, Yue Yun, Qin Qiong, etc. Most of these people are ancient military generals. Wearing armor and holding weapons. Some characters are solemn and majestic, while others are angry and domineering. The third type is the auspicious type. The characters in this type are lively and cute, smiling all the time, and the composition is relaxed and soft, giving people a friendly image. Dongchang woodblock New Year paintings design characters according to different purposes to meet people's various psychological needs during the New Year, expressing people's yearning and pursuit for good wishes for the new year. Dongchang woodblock New Year paintings have a long history and are passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, both the knife skills and production technology are relatively mature, the lines are smooth, the arrangement is dense and orderly, the composition is rigorous, and according to different needs, there are also large and small differences, forming a series, forming a widespread industry at that time. Dongchangfu woodblock New Year paintings are the accumulation of social life phenomena in Dongchangfu and surrounding areas in history. The works have profound and rich cultural connotations and are of great reference value for studying the sociology, economics, folklore, aesthetics, archeology, etc. of local and even surrounding ethnic groups. In terms of traditional national plastic arts, it is the development and continuation of folk arts such as painted pottery, bronze ware, stone reliefs, stone carvings, religious murals, etc. Therefore, it has extremely high artistic value. Dongchangfu woodblock New Year paintings have a strong local flavor and strong folk interest. They have unique local colors and simple and ancient national styles. They are a wonderful flower in folk arts and crafts. In the long river of history, its wide range of themes and rich content have always been closely connected with folk customs. Its unique modeling methods and color expression methods have always been loved by the people, and have been prosperous for a long time. The folk sculptors of Dongchangfu have naturally and maturely hidden the practical experience passed down from generation to generation in the creation of prints. The innocence and immaturity, roughness and mystery reflect the artistic atmosphere of agricultural society. They are created with the imagination and imagery of spiritual introspection, and are also the carriers of historical culture. To this day, our study and research on Dongchangfu woodblock New Year paintings is of great significance to the development of new art and the promotion of the traditional culture of the Chinese nation.