Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures are one of the ancient traditional handicrafts in China. As the originator of China woodblock New Year pictures, they are mainly distributed in Kaifeng, Zhuxian Town and their surrounding areas. The woodcut New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town are full of composition, rough and concise lines, simple and exaggerated shapes and fresh and gorgeous colors.

On May 20th, 2006, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures were approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

Chinese Name: Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Origin: Zhuxian Town, Kaifeng City, Henan Province Date of birth: Born in the Tang Dynasty, flourished in the Song Dynasty theme forms: fighting gods, life New Year pictures, family hall pictures and other production methods? : the combination of woodcut and seal cutting, watermark color matching? Representative Works: Song He Yannian, Wuzi Champion and other historical origins, artistic characteristics, expression techniques, technological characteristics, color application, composition techniques, production techniques, inheritance and development, theme forms and historical origins. Zhuxian Town woodblock New Year pictures were born in the Tang Dynasty, flourished in the Song Dynasty and flourished in the Ming Dynasty. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Tokyo, the capital of the Song Dynasty, was the political, economic and cultural center of the whole country, and a large number of businessmen from all over the country poured into the capital. The huge citizen class promoted the development of secular literature and art, and the active secular literature and art provided rich soil for the creation of New Year pictures. In addition, the invention of movable type printing promoted the prosperity of block printing industry in China. Since then, New Year pictures have changed from strokes to block printing. At that time, the printing and sales of Tokyo woodblock New Year pictures were unprecedented. Not only did folk workshops spread all over the capital, but even the official court of the Song Dynasty presided over the establishment of New Year pictures workshops. The integration of government-run workshops and folk workshops makes the development of woodblock New Year pictures inevitable. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the invasion of Jin Bing, Kyoto fell, and the prosperous civic culture gradually declined. A large number of New Year artists fled to the south of the Yangtze River, and the woodblock New Year painting industry in Tokyo moved to Zhuxian Town, 45 miles from Tokyo. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the rivers in Zhuxian Town extended in all directions and immediately became the commercial center of the Central Plains. Woodblock New Year pictures quickly recovered in the bustling commercial port, and their business was booming and their reputation was far-reaching. According to reports, there were more than 300 companies engaged in this industry in Zhuxian Town at that time. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, due to the blockage of the river and the impassability of the waterway in Zhuxian Town, the business of woodblock New Year pictures became increasingly depressed. In the early years of the Republic of China, there were more than 40 workshops in the town, and more than 2,000 people were engaged in making New Year pictures. Customers from Shandong, Anhui, Hebei, Jiangsu and other places poured in, and business was booming. There are Wantong, Jinyongtai, Tianxingde, Deshengchang, Tianyide, Tianchengde, Datiancheng, Deyuanchang, Wansheng and 31%. Before the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the woodblock New Year pictures industry in Zhuxian Town moved to Kaifeng, which set off the third climax of the prosperity of woodblock New Year pictures. At that time, there were more than 60 New Year pictures workshops in Kaifeng, mainly concentrated in Dongjie, Xijie, Zhongshan Road and Bookstore Street. Famous old shops include Huichuan, Zhenyuan Yong, Ji Yun, Hongji and Tianfu Li. After 1949, Kaifeng City successively established groups such as Kaifeng New Year Painting Society of Henan Province and Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Painting Society to excavate and sort out the traditional crafts of Woodblock New Year Pictures. The artistic features of Zhuxian Town's woodblock New Year pictures come from the people and spread among the people, which is different from the gentle style of court literati paintings in past dynasties. Its lines are bold and unrestrained, the plot is vivid and touching, the composition is full and symmetrical, the image is concise and vivid, the color is rich and strong, it is very decorative and has distinctive local characteristics. In terms of expression, Zhuxian Town New Year pictures absorbed traditional painting techniques and colorful decorative techniques, and created vivid stories of characters, but they were just right and did not deliberately describe the background scenes of the characters. Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures deal with pictures and depict characters in a concise, vivid and exaggerated way. The image-building of gods, especially the head image and exaggerated body proportion, is very infectious. The most prominent feature of Zhuxian Town New Year pictures is that the characters are handsome and handsome, and there is no flattering color. Zhuxian Town's New Year pictures originated from the folk. Through the performances of artists, they incorporated the aesthetic concept and worship consciousness of national traditional culture, reflecting the farmers' wishes for a better life, such as abundant crops, prosperity and harmony, peace and good luck, and the prosperity of six animals, as well as their thoughts and feelings of strengthening the body to exorcise evil spirits and distinguishing between love and hate. Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures inherited the excellent traditional artistic techniques in ancient China, and formed its own local characteristics: the whole picture is full, compact and rigorous, leaving no blank, distinguishing primary and secondary, highlighting the main body, and showing the decorative interest of uniform and symmetrical patterns. On the screen, the artist also adopted the "scattered perspective method" of Chinese painting, so that everything can be clearly displayed and serve the main body, and the layout of the screen will not make people feel unreasonable. Craft Features The woodcut New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town are made by combining woodcut and engraving, with various watermarks and colors. The raw materials used are processing procedures, the paper is exquisite, colorful and solemn, and the themes and contents are mainly historical dramas, romance novels, fairy tales and folklore. New Year pictures have strong local flavor, strong folk interest, unique local color and simple national style. The woodcut New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town have bold lines, thick yin and thin yang, and strong contrast between yin and yang. Especially in the lines of the costumes painted by God, it is more prominent, with local flavor, and has the artistic style of simplicity, massiness, rigidity and neatness of the northern nationalities. The use of color Zhuxian Town woodblock New Year pictures is very particular about color. Using minerals and plants as raw materials, the pigment is ground by hand. The color of the ground pigment is very pure, and the printed New Year pictures are bright and will not fade after a long time. Zhuxian Town attaches great importance to the appreciation habits of the Chinese nation, using three primary colors, cyan, yellow and red. The total number of colors used can reach 9 ~ 10. People often say that "seeing yellow and purple is ugly to death", but the collocation of Rayna Sue, a New Year picture of Zhuxian Town in Kaifeng, is thick in color and strong in contrast. Not only not ugly, but also brightly colored, which complements the happy atmosphere of the folk New Year. Zhuxian Town New Year pictures advocate the use of warm colors, such as Danhong, Mu Hong, Taohong, Sophora japonica, Orange, etc., which are enthusiastic and unrestrained. Color swatches include: blackboard (black embryo), water blackboard, red board, face board (wood red), purple board (sunflower purple), green board (verdigris), blue board, yellow board (yellow board) and so on. All plates except the yellow plate are overprinted. Mu Hong, Tonglu and Kwai Zi are the main colors of figure costumes, and the colors in secular life are integrated into the religious color mode of worshipping gods. Such as "Zhong Kui Town House" red crown and green robe; In "Kitchen Horse", the chef is a red robe and the kitchen milk is a green robe; "Guan Ye" is a red-faced and green robe. Painting people's eyelids with bare Dan is also a unique style of Zhuxian Town's New Year pictures, such as Zhao Kuangyin and Angelababy (jade belt bronze hammer) in Huotangzhai, Guo Ziyi brought into court, Deng Lu of Jiaguan, Chai Rong of Chaiwang cart, Li Siyuan and Wang of Goujiatan and whip. Composition Skills Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures are full of composition, thick and simple lines, simple and exaggerated shapes and fresh and gorgeous colors. The characters are big and small, which not only has comedy effect, but also feels symmetrical and comfortable. In some places, the New Year pictures are decorated with red faces, while the New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town have no red faces and look natural and harmonious. In the traditional folk arts and crafts in China, people often make or draw tigers as yellow tigers or red tigers, while the New Year picture in Zhuxian Town is Hei Hu. This unconventional creative technique has attracted the attention and praise of Chinese and foreign art circles. The production technology of Zhuxian Town woodblock New Year pictures is very particular.

The first step is to select first-class solid pear wood for carving. Before carving, coat the board with vegetable oil three or four times, dry it naturally, and then rinse it with boiling hot water. Then use a special scraper to scrape off the oil slick on the surface of the board, which the artist calls "cooked version". In the early years, most of the wood carving tools were made by ourselves, including carving knives, sewing knives, article files, gong files, scrapers, shovels and hammers. Later, the sculptor also used a set of special carving knives.

The printing tools for New Year pictures are mostly made of local materials, using the hair and brown color at the top of local wild plants and tied with ropes.

Grass cone color brush, one color can not be mixed.

There are also auxiliary tools such as hammers, sandbags and brushes.

In the past, the paper used for New Year pictures was mostly made of cheap local soil and rough paper. Since the Qing Dynasty, glossy paper in Japan has been used for New Year pictures with large specifications and good toughness. Later, China's traditional raw rice paper was used for printing.

200 New Year pictures are a "block". When printing, press different pieces of paper on the homemade bamboo clip. After the paper is clamped firmly, one end is inserted into the "pipe nail" and the other end is put into the self-made gray brick groove to fold the paper into an "S" shape.

Printing black lines requires both hands, and the lines are clear and three-dimensional. The whole set of movements and processes requires quick eyes and quick hands, close cooperation between hands and eyes, and must be devoted to nuance.

The color board contains more color than the wire board, the paper is easy to rot if the force is too heavy, and the color block is not real if the force is too light. The left-hand jar is flat-swept, and every process needs careful operation.

Senior New Year pictures, idols' eyes, beards and costumes need to be painted with ink, gold powder and color for up to nine times. Ordinary New Year pictures are made of five colors: black, yellow, red, Dan, green and purple, which are light first, then heavy, and then overprinted in turn.

The order of color matching is: first print black, then print yellow, then print red, green and cyan, and some paintings need to be printed with pink or face.

After the painting is printed, you need to stop for a few hours and "eat" the color into the paper. Do it again at night. It's just right.

Zhuxian town woodblock New Year pictures are very particular about color. Artists use traditional multi-channel color matching techniques, such as frying, boiling and filtering, to elaborate. Make the New Year pictures more colorful. They add alum and lime to green and purple. Purple blue should be fully fermented, and the foam should be adjusted when brewing, so that the color can be calm, lasting and lasting. Also add residual tea to the color, so that it won't stick together when painting, and so on. Inheritance and Development of Woodblock New Year Pictures in Zhuxian Town The origin of Woodblock New Year Pictures in Zhuxian Town is not entirely in the town. There are small workshop artists around the town, and Zhuxian Town is just a distribution center. The number of workshops in this town can reach more than 300 at the most, which shows its large scale. The annual output of woodcut New Year pictures can reach 3 million, which are not only sold to Henan Province, but also exported to Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Ningxia and other places, and the sales radiation covers nearly half of China, showing its great influence. 196 1 year, the woodblock New Year pictures were restored and developed, and the "Zhuxian Town New Year Pictures Production Cooperative of Kaifeng City" was established. 1983 Provincial Press and Publication Administration approved the establishment of "Woodblock New Year Pictures Society in Zhuxian Town, Kaifeng City". 1986 With the support of Kaifeng Tourism Bureau and Zhuxian Town Party Committee and Government, Zhuxian Town of Kaifeng County established "Kaifeng Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Society". Undertook the excavation, collection and arrangement of woodcut New Year pictures. The establishment of Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Society indicates that Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures have an opportunity for inheritance and development, and Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures have a professional institution for inheritance and development. 1987 Kaifeng Social Federation approved the establishment of Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Research Association. From June to 10, 2003, Zhuxian Town was awarded the title of "Hometown of Woodblock New Year Pictures in China" by the state. In 2004, Kaifeng Museum established a research and protection center for woodblock New Year pictures in Zhuxian Town, Kaifeng. In May 2006, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures were included in the first batch of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List". In June 2006, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures participated in Hangzhou World Leisure Expo and won the gold medal. In July, 2006, he participated in China Midwest Craft Expo and won the gold medal. In 2006, in cooperation with provincial, municipal and county people's associations, the compilation of China Woodblock New Year Pictures Integration-Zhuxian Town New Year Pictures Volume was completed. In June, 2006, 165438+ 10, obtained the export qualification through Henan Provincial Department of Commerce. June 5438 +2006 10, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Society was named "Henan Cultural Relics Reproduction Research and Development Base" by Henan Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau. In 2006, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures were designated as the practice base of fine arts and film by Zhongyuan Institute of Technology, Zhongyuan Film and Television College and Zhengzhou Institute of Light Industry. Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures not only have high artistic collection value, but also have high ornamental value. Kaifeng excavated and sorted out more than 220 old-fashioned New Year pictures, reprinted more than 300 sets of old-fashioned historical New Year pictures, and edited and printed Selected Woodblock New Year Pictures of Zhuxian Town in Kaifeng, Treasures of Woodblock New Year Pictures of Zhuxian Town and Stories of Woodblock New Year Pictures of Zhuxian Town, which did a lot of useful work for protecting traditional Woodblock New Year pictures. Zhuxian Town Government has increased the training of talents and the protection, inheritance and development of old artists. By the end of 20 10, there were more than 70 people engaged in printing woodblock New Year pictures in Zhuxian town, including "first-class folk artists" named by UNESCO 1 person, 5 members of China Folk Artists Association, 5 masters of Henan folk arts and crafts, 6 artists, 25 members of provincial people's associations and 4 woodblock New Year pictures nature reserves. A very important reason that hinders the development of Zhuxian Town's woodcut New Year pictures is that the high-quality traditional woodcut New Year pictures are greatly impacted by low-priced goods, and the market base of traditional woodcut New Year pictures is already very weak. Due to the constant emergence of unfair competition means such as homogenization of commodities, shoddy products and shoddy products in the New Year pictures market, without the encouragement and support of all parties, it is difficult for Zhuxian Town's woodblock New Year pictures to stand on the market for a long time, thus causing the development crisis of Zhuxian Town's traditional culture. In 20 16, Kaifeng Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Group, a state-owned group jointly established by Xiangfu District Government of Kaifeng City and Rhino Club (Beijing) Information Technology Group, came into being. Authorized by Kaifeng Municipal Government, the Group has the exclusive right to operate Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures. The woodcut New Year Pictures of Zhuxian Town made by Kaifeng Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Group are all printed with pure plant mineral dyes. Although this technology has been lost for nearly a hundred years with the changes of the times, Zhuxian Town Woodblock New Year Pictures Group has finally restored the ancient printing of plant mineral dyes through ingenious development and long-term repeated experiments. With the national "non-legacy" paper and four pieces of paper, the woodcut New Year pictures of Zhuxian Town were made by traditional techniques. At the same time, it is combined with the development of the current era, so that it can adapt to the current people's aesthetic standards while maintaining traditional characteristics, continue traditional culture and scientific and technological works, and inherit traditional crafts. Zhuxian Town woodblock New Year pictures are mostly about fighting gods, among which Weichi Gong and he are two military commanders. They either wear different clothes or have different shapes: take off the whip, whip immediately, whip back, hold the whip, erect the knife, wear a robe and so on. , not less than 20 models. In addition, there are all kinds of civil and military fighting gods. Wendu God has five sons, nine lotus lanterns and Fu Lushou. Wu Shen is often a loyal minister and a righteous man, and he is also a hero in China's traditional operas. Different people's doors are often pasted with different contents of fighting God: on the doors of married children, there are "God sends children", "Lian Sheng Gui Zi" and "Three Mothers Teach Children"; Middle-aged people put "increase official positions" and "step by step promotion" on the door; Old people put "Songhe Yannian" and longevity on the door; At the entrance of the juvenile dormitory, "Five sons win the championship" and "Liu Hai hits the golden toad" are posted. Life New Year pictures include paper pictures (similar to checkers) for adults, including Ding Bai, a scholar, a juren, a scholar, a top scholar and a senior official, who are promoted to the rank step by step, so they are called "promotion pictures". Spiral upgraded games such as gold ingot, jewelry, chopping wood and keys are specially used for children's games, commonly known as "grasping small pictures". There are also dragon and phoenix lanterns for men and women to engage (exchange small posts), flowered paper and wrapping paper for beautifying the environment, paper painting fans for the Dragon Boat Festival, and "Moonlight Bodhisattva" for the Mid-Autumn Festival. There are also varieties specially used to tie "social fires", with many characters and large scenes, mostly folio and full-page size. There are many kinds of floral paper "table skirts" used to cover sundries and decorate the environment, and many of them have been lost. Family hall painting is an image dedicated to three generations of deceased relatives, also known as ancestral hall, which is used by ordinary poor farmers to worship their ancestors in simple places. The picture is divided into three layers, with great-grandparents and grandparents painted on it; China people are parents; The following paintings are engraved with heavenly officials, boys and girls, cash cows, cornucopia, halberds, helmets, gold ingots and jewels. And there are generally words "Happy New Year to the whole family". Pray for ancestors to bless the prosperity and well-being of the family in the spirit of heaven: inspire future generations to work hard for the land and honor their ancestors. Because it is stuck in the middle of the hall, it is called "home hall", and there are many different specifications and styles.