The Origin of Liangping Woodblock New Year Pictures

It is said that Liangping woodblock New Year pictures originated in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty, developed quite well in Kangxi and Yongzheng periods of Qing Dynasty, and reached its peak in the Republic of China. According to "Etiquette and Folklore of Liangshan County" (volume 10, 20th edition of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty), there is the following statement about the portrait of Liang Ping's door god: "Sweep the house on the 23rd and 4th of the twelfth lunar month, and sacrifice to the country at night." According to legend, Kitchen God plays good and evil on earth every day, so he prays for it. "New Year's Eve" is a relaxed door god, making spring stickers. Sacrifice ancestors with pig heads, chickens and fish to meet the kitchen god. Setting off firecrackers, getting together for a long time and drinking are called "shou sui". Liangping woodblock New Year pictures came into being with the evolution of social customs and developed with the development of printing. At that time, Liangping Pingjin Shop (now Liangping Pingjin Town) developed into hundreds of workshops, with more than a thousand kinds of paintings, and each family carved wood and painted artists.

Liangpingjin Town 1536, a painting room made of red paper first appeared. At that time, the studio used ink to watermark single patterns and statues on red paper to meet the needs of people's weddings and funerals, and later began to make New Year pictures. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the New Year pictures industry set up a guild called "Meigehui", and the owners of dyeing paper and New Year pictures donated money to build Meige Temple. Every year, a meeting will be held in June 16 of the lunar calendar to offer sacrifices to Master Mei Ge, discuss and decide all the affairs of the guild, and coordinate all the matters in the guild.

Liang Ping's woodcut New Year pictures in Qing Dynasty are famous in Beijing and sell well in Southeast Asia. According to the Records of Liangping County, there were branches in Yichang, Shashi and Hankou during the Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, and their products were sold to Shaanxi, Southwest China and the Yangtze River basin, which was very popular. According to the survey, there were Yuanxing, Xinli, Zhengxing, Hengtaizheng, Dehetai, Fengxiangyun and Yao Wang Door Gods in the workshops of New Year pictures at that time. "Mr. Zhu, who is idle in the screen, has a new yellow color on the official green list, and he is even more famous in Beijing Province. He is a door god of golden soil and water." This Zhuzhi Ci is about the heyday of Liang Ping's New Year pictures in Qing Dynasty.

From 19 13 to 1934, Liangping New Year pictures entered its heyday, producing millions of pictures every year, which not only met the demand of local farmers for new year's goods, but also exported to Shashi, Yichang, Wuhan, Hanzhong and Guiyang. In the early years of the Republic of China, a founder of Wang Xing spread the printing industry of New Year pictures to Yuanba Post (now Yuan Yi Town, Liangping) and named it "Kun Fa Hao". Due to the numerous workshops of New Year pictures, Ping Jin and Yuan Yi have gradually formed a prosperous "Brush Square Street". There are more than 30 workshops in liangping county, and there are many manual workshops for New Year pictures, ranging from twenty or thirty artists to forty or fifty people, with hundreds of employees. New Year pictures developed from monochrome to multi-version color overprint, and were hand-painted on this basis. Craft from simple to complex, the variety is constantly enriched, and it has become one of the famous producing areas of New Year pictures in China. At that time, the town was half a workshop and half an inn, teahouse and restaurant. In the peak season of ordering and selling New Year pictures, merchants from all over the country gather and are called "Little Chongqing". A typical painting room is divided into two floors: front and back. A plurality of stairs on the ground floor lead to the upper floor, which are used to handle the materials needed for each process; The second floor is connected into a workshop, and craftsmen line up according to the production process of New Year pictures.

In 1930s and 1940s, it was collected by museums in the Soviet Union, the United States and France, and became famous at home and abroad. At the end of the 20th century, the traditional Liangping woodcut New Year pictures were included in such large picture books as The Complete Works of China Fine Arts, The Complete Works of China Folk Fine Arts, The Three Gorges Folk Fine Arts and Folk New Year Pictures.

With the change of history, Liangping New Year pictures gradually declined, and the handicraft workshop stopped production on 1958.