Guan Huinong painted the month card painting. Originally published in the Macao Provisional Island Municipal Council "Gilded Years" (Provincial Hong Kong and Macao Old Moon Card Painting)
The page of the Famous Painting Calendar published by Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company and arranged by Panda Micro.
In 1909, Feng Runzhi made it. Originally published in Macau City Hall, "Traces of Time" (Monthly Card).
Gao Jian monk painted "Beauty Playing moon map".
1918, Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company Calendar. Collection of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library
□ Huang Dade
Monthly card painting evolved from The New Year painting
Chinese New Year paintings, evolved from the door god, have an early origin. In the Notes of the Book of Rites and Funeral Dresses, there is a saying that "Junshi Rong, the God of The Ritual Gate"; in the Records of the Jingchu Years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there is also a record of "the first day of the first month, painting the left and right gods of the two gods, the left god, the right Yulei, commonly known as the door god". It is said that the gods and Yu Lei often stand under the peach tree of Theo Mountain in the East Sea, and whenever they see a harmful ghost, they are bound with reeds to feed the tiger, and there is a golden rooster on the peach tree, so the earliest door paintings also paint chickens and tigers.
Around the Ming Dynasty, the door gods became Qin Shubao and Hu Jingde, it is said that once Tang Taizong fell ill, he heard the ghostly shouting outside the door at night, and then the founding generals Qin and Hu Erchen guarded outside the palace gate, and Tang Taizong was peaceful overnight. So he ordered the painter to paint the portrait of the two hanging on both sides of the palace gate, and it was no longer haunted. As a result, Qin and Hu became the protagonists of the door paintings, angrily rushing to the crown, fully clothed, and wielding swords, which also meant to drive away evil spirits and demons. With the invention of printing, in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, there were woodblock prints, and in the Ming Dynasty, Suzhou's Taohuawu, Shandong's Weixian and Tianjin's Yang Liuqing produced a large number of New Year paintings, from which the New Year paintings completely got rid of religious themes and turned to folk, and the style also changed, most of them were rich in composition, colorful, decorative, with strong national characteristics, and their contents were mostly based on operas, novels, folklore, myths, beauties and local life, and also had folk popular auspicious words (such as "longevity prolonging the year") and "five grains and fengdeng" "Peace and fortune", etc.) and idiomatic allusions as the theme, mainly allude to festive and auspicious, exorcising evil and avoiding evil. It has become a kind of art that is popular in China. Every New Year,every household must post it to show festive celebrations. However, at that time, there was no term "New Year Painting", until the twenty-ninth year of Guangxu (1849), Li Guangting's "Interpretation of the Rural Dialect", listed a "New Year Painting": "After sweeping the house, I paste the New Year painting, and the child's play ear." However, such as "Filial Piety Diagram" and "Crops Busy", let the children see it, explain it, and it is not necessary to cultivate one end. ”
It is said that the moon card first appeared in Shanghai in the ninth year of Guangxu (1883). As for the appearance of the month card New Year painting, it is later. At that time, on the occasion of the New Year, foreign foreign companies liked to send monthly cards as gifts to customers, which was actually used for advertising. However, the foreign companies printed all Western classical paintings, and Chinese naturally did not like them very much. So there is China's own style of monthly brand paintings. Zheng Yimei said in "NianHua Talks About the Old" that the founder of China's monthly pai painting was Zhou Muqiao in Shanghai, who painted many characters from the Three Kingdoms drama. This was followed by Xu Yongqing, who painted mostly landscapes. But the person who formed the style was Zheng Mantuo. In Guangdong, people call Guan Huinong the originator of the monthly brand painting. In fact, these statements are not accurate.
Who is the "King of The Monthly Card Painting"?
According to the author's three atlases of "Traces of Time" (Monthly Plaque, 1994) published by the Macao City Hall, the Macao Museum of Art's "Modern Ring Body" (Republic of China Lady Advertising Painting, 2009), and the Macao Provisional Island Municipal Council's 2001 "Gilded Years" (Provincial Hong Kong and Macao Old Month Card Painting, 2001), in 1901 there was an annual calendar painting painted by Watson's Great Pharmacy, signed "Author Unknown". It was confirmed by Feng Runzhi's son Feng Jiewen that the painting was written by Chen Shaozhai, a student of Feng Runzhi. The next few paintings were all made by Feng Runzhi.
Mr. Chengfeng Jiewen informed: Feng Runzhi first learned Western painting, then Learned Chinese painting, and privately Shu Qian Hui'an. For the sake of life, every year, he draws a monthly card painting for Watsons, Liangyixuan and other trading houses. The subject matter he paints is completely in line with traditional Chinese customs and aesthetic habits, in the form of New Year paintings, using fu, lu, shou, rong, hua, rich, noble, home, harmony, wan, things, xing, music, goodness, auspiciousness, auspiciousness, yi, kang, ning, Rui and other auspicious and festive characters as the main body, with the traditional Chinese pen and ink embedded in such as Nanshan Jinshi, Eighteen Arhats, Eight Immortals crossing the sea and other well-known stories, the colors are golden and brilliant, extremely gorgeous, full of Chinese traditional characteristics, full of festive atmosphere of the New Year, so it is welcomed by manufacturers and the masses.
As for Guan Huinong, he only worshipped Feng Runzhi as a teacher in 1905, and after obtaining his method, he established himself. Guan Huinong was employed by the South China Morning Post in his early years, and later founded the Asian Lithography Bureau on his own, undertook to print commodity posters of major companies, in 1908, the Asia Fire Oil Company painted the costume monthly brand painting, initially based on the theme of ancient costume characters, since the introduction of Zheng Mantuo's month card in Shanghai, he began to move closer to the style of "Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect" Zheng, whether from the painting title to the character, clothing, expression, and shape. The Chinese monthly card paintings of this period simply did not have their own style to speak of. It is said that after the advent of the "Filial Piety Breast Girl Diagram" painted by Guan Huinong for the weaving of Lei Baoxing Motor, it had the reputation of "Great King" of the Guangdong Monthly Tablet Painting.
In my opinion, the title of "Great King" should be given to Feng Runzhi.
The progenitor of the Chinese calendar
When did Calendar start? No elaboration. As for the origin of China's calendar, from the historical data, the earliest should be in 1917. On December 27, 1916, there was an advertisement in the "Chinese Character Daily":
"Instructions for those who exchange for fine art":
"Enlightener: Our company inherits the strength of patriotic kings to maintain, sense and immortality. Printed notes on the earth and in the cigarette packs, and exchanged art for good friendship, which was published in the newspaper. Now the flower blossom day daily as desired (that is, the daily number of one page per day), has been printed, the same day can come to the distribution office or various agents to exchange. This day number, which has art decoration every day, is different from others, and is most suitable for business names. If they wish to change their monthly cards and art paintings, please return the accumulated cigarette packs to our issuing office or agency in accordance with the prescribed number on the same day, and exchange them for watermark vouchers, so that when they are printed, they can be exchanged for orders in order to divide the rabbits, and the rabbit temporary inspection is also difficult. Shang Pray Bright Cha. Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company hereby. December 14, 1955. ”
A month later, the newspaper had follow-up arrangements for the above advertisement:
"Our company this year and month before the urging of the electricity, is to receive a call from the Shanghai Printing Office, the project is busy, the calculation of the old calendar at the beginning of the first month, can print and other words, as if this is slow, to people from all walks of life look through the autumn water, I am sorry." However, the beauty painting (no month) and the calendar number have been sent, you can bring the coupon to exchange at any time, and if you want to change the month, please stay less for the Netherlands, this cloth"
This "day number" is "Calendar". However, there was no name for "calendar" at that time. However, the calendar of that year no longer exists, but in the library of the University of Chinese in Hong Kong, the 1918 "Catalogue of the Year, Month, and Day of the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company in China" is in the collection. The calendar still retains the color printed Beauty Month card painting every Saturday (probably because Gao Jian's father and brothers launched more than a thousand Beauty Month card paintings since the founding of the Aesthetic Library, which has changed the aesthetic fashion of society), and the rest are Chinese paintings. The author can sort out the names of Deng Erya and his wife Chen Shuling, his son Xiao Erling, Cai Zhefu, Zhang Qingcheng and his wife, Tan Yunbo, Huang Ding, Yin Diyun, Tan Yunbo, Yin Rutian, Feng Runzhi, Feng Shaozhi, Feng Kaitai, Yin Qiren, Wang Zhuxuan, Pan He, Ma Junwu and so on. A total of 117 pages, from the perspective of cultural relics, it is extremely precious.
How many years did Nanyang Tobacco's calendar last? unknown. The author has a calendar published by the company in 1928, written by Pan Dawei, Pan Zhizhong, Huang Shaomei, Huang Banruo, Huang Jianbai (Yonggao), Zhang Guyan, Lu Zhenhuan, Luo Haikong (Buddha nature, Buddha), Li Shou'an, etc. A painting per day, the inscription is signed Pingguang (Liao Pingzi), and there are 166 pages in existence.
These two calendars reveal a lot of information.
The first is the use of the incomprehensible term "daily grade" in the advertisement in 1915, indicating that the concept of "calendar" had not yet appeared at that time, and it can be seen that nanyang tobacco company was the first to create it.
Second, the two calendars were produced by Nanyang Tobacco Company, and the director at that time was Pan Dawei. The author of the 1918 book was his old friend and his wife or children who used to run the Current Affairs Pictorial. It should be in the attempt stage of innovation. In 1928, the author of this book was all a member of the Chinese Painting Society, and he was also a group of painters of Pan Dawei.
The third is that in 1928, ben changed the old example of beauty painting on Saturdays ten years ago, all of which were Chinese paintings. This is undoubtedly an echo of the full firepower of the "European and American new faction" in Shanghai.
The fourth is the original intention of the establishment of the Chinese Painting Society: at a time when the whole country "despises the study of Chinese culture, and the painting school will decline on the day", it puts forward "the purpose of studying Chinese painting and revitalizing fine arts" to "carry forward the national light". To this end, the Chinese Painting Society has a plan to establish a Chinese painting school, which is not excluded as an organic part of their plan.
According to Lu Danlin, "From 1925 to 1927, the Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company issued the "Famous Painting Calendar" (Desk Calendar), which was carefully arranged by Pan Dawei, most of which were written by himself, signed coldly, and many poets and celebrities inscribed them. After the calendar was released, it was considered to be a good model for students of painting and was very popular with people at home and abroad. Huang Miaozi also recalled Huang Banruoshi: "I remember that in the Advertising Calendar of Nanyang Tobacco Company hosted by Mr. Pan Dawei, there was a line painting every day, and every few pages were opened, there was a yellow-like painting of plum blossoms, kingfishers or Buddha figures. At that time, admiration and envy filled my soul as a hairy boy. ”
This "model" can be regarded as a major motivation for Pan Dawei and chinese painting colleagues to draw calendars.