Wuqiang New Year Painting Journey

Author: Shen Hong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: From the existing collections, it can be seen that many places in China have workshops specializing in carved New Year prints. Over more than a thousand years of development, they have gradually formed famous woodblock New Year print centers such as Yangjiafu in Weifang, Shandong; Zhuxian Town in Kaifeng, Henan; Tantou in Shaoyang, Hunan; Yangliqing in Tianjin; Wuqiang in Hebei; Taohuawu in Suzhou, Jiangsu; Mianzhu in Sichuan; Foshan in Guangdong; Fengxiang in Shaanxi; Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian; Linfen in Shanxi; Dali in Yunnan; and Liuzhou in Guangxi. These regions had already reached considerable scale during the reigns of Emperor Yongzheng and Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty and flourished for a time. However, today, under the impact of modernization, New Year prints are facing a crisis. According to the author's field research, New Year prints have disappeared in some areas. The author has traveled to many provinces and cities across the country in search of New Year prints and found that most production sites have vanished, such as Guilin, Nanning, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Xiaogan, Huangpi, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guiyang, Dali, Lijiang, Zhongdian, Datong, Jiujiang, Nanchang, Shanghai, and Beijing. Despite the author's efforts to find New Year prints, they were nowhere to be found. What is even more disheartening is that in some regions where New Year print production was once at its peak during the Qing and Republican periods, there are no longer any artisans left! Only about ten production sites still exist, with only one or two elderly artisans in places like Tantou, Fengxiang, and Foshan continuing to produce New Year prints. If these artisans leave, the art of New Year printmaking will cease to exist. Even the more recently promoted New Year print centers like Mianzhu, Wuqiang, and Zhuxian Town now have only a handful of workshops left, all facing the same predicament of losing their artisans. The few remaining elderly New Year print artisans across the country are aging and frail, with no successors in sight. They lamented, "If society does not pay attention, within three to five years, or even ten years at most, New Year prints will disappear from our generation or the next." New Year prints are a national art that uses images as symbols and are closely related to folk customs, beliefs, and legends. Folk woodblock prints are a form of folk culture rooted in national heritage, reflecting the lives of the common people and embodying their genuine worldview and aspirations for a better life, as well as satisfying their desire for knowledge and aesthetics. For this reason, some forward-thinking individuals have called for the rescue of folk New Year prints. For example, Wang Shucun, the vice president of the Chinese Folk Art Association and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Arts, whom the author has met, has written and published 50 specialized books on New Year prints and folk art, calling for their rescue. Zhang Dianying, a Shandong New Year print master who won the "Fifth China Folk Literature and Art Shanhua Award" for his long scroll "Joy of the Peasants" and was honored by UNESCO as a "First-Class Folk Art Craftsman," has also called for the rescue of New Year prints. Other advocates include Qi Jianmin, former president of the Wuqiang New Year Print Society; Hu Guangkui, current president of the Mianzhu New Year Print Society; and Zhang Jizhong, current president of the Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Print Society. While the author was writing this book, President Hu of the Mianzhu New Year Print Society in Sichuan called to invite the author to participate in the "Expert Symposium on Rescuing and Revitalizing New Year Prints," held on January 28, 2005, in Mianzhu.