A Cultural Symbol - China's New Year Picture

A Cultural Symbol - China's New Year Picture

Spring Festival, China's most celebrative occasion, begins its annual felicitations with the posting of New Year pictures on the walls and windows on the 24th of the 12th month in the lunar calendar according to tradition. The pictures convey people's jubilation and expectations of the coming new year.

However, in a century of rapid globalization, how many traditions have been lucky enough to survive? Is the New Year picture bound to disappear from people's memory?

 Traditional New Year pictures mainly feature local people's life and customs with intense colors and violent contrast. Famous pictures like "Fat Baby," "Abundant Harvest of All Food Crops," and "Surplus Every Year" have been prevailing across China for hundreds of years. Nonetheless, today, these pictures can hardly be found in some modern metropolises like Shanghai, which was once a prosperous place for New Year picture manufacture and consumption. Some think that the disappearance of New Year pictures is unavoidable. So what remains beneath the continuing disappearance?

  Epitome of traditional customs

Chinese New Year pictures not only serve mainly as an embodiment of folk customs, but also boast decorative and appreciative values.

"People post these pictures around the walls of the kang (a heatable brick bed in North China) and on the windows for ornament. The pictures' contents include folk tales, ancient legends, historic stories, and real life scenarios, and thus boast appreciative value," noted Feng Jicai, a famous writer as well as the president of the China Folk Artists Association that is dedicated to rescuing China's folk culture, including the investigation and rescue project of woodblock.
 

New Year pictures from Tianjin Yangliuqing, Suzhou Taohuawu, Weifang Yangjiabu, and Hebei Wuqiang are acknowledged as the "Four Great Woodblocks in China," each of which boasts unique features. Nonetheless, the four places of New Year's picture production have been gradually declining since the 1980s, and are at the verge of extinction.

 

"In fact, Chinese New Year pictures began to disappear as early as the beginning of the Republic of China (1911-1949)," said Feng, adding: "Shanghai clearly demonstrated the disappearing trace of New Year pictures."

Su Zhou Taohuawu New Year's pictures entered the Shanghai market at the beginning of the Republic of China, and over time evolved into Xiaoxiaochang New Year pictures.

"They (Xiaoxiaochang New Year pictures) reflected the life in the concessions, echoing the time spirit and containing local flavor," said Feng. "But the introduction of Western printing skills changed the fate of China's New Year pictures. … However, the New Year pictures with new printing skills do not have the original and traditional flavor."

  Rescue

In Wuqiang County of North China's Hebei Province, there are only about 80 experienced artists with an average age of 40 engaged in cutting woodblocks and printing New Year pictures. Many seasoned craftspeople changed their profession when the industry began to decline.

Although now, many famous places that produce New Year pictures have developed the place's culture and tourism with the support of woodblock, hence greatly enhancing the artworks' popularity and protection, with its root no longer in the traditional customs, Wuqiang's original flavor has weakened.

"The disappearing course of China's New Year pictures is also a process in which we throw away our traditions," noted Feng. "We could only really pick up New Year pictures again by meditating upon history, folk customs, and cultural bearings."

Spring Festival is usually mentioned in the same breath as Christmas. While China has fireworks and New Year pictures, the West boasts Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and Christmas cards.