On January 10, the eighth day of the first lunar month, Zhang Yunxiang released a circle of friends early in the morning, a bowl of Lapa Porridge, accompanied by several Pictures of New Year paintings. Getting up early is Zhang Yunxiang's habit for many years, this year's Lapa Festival, he got up earlier than usual, from morning to afternoon, the phone kept calling in, taking orders for delivery. "In previous years to around October, all the orders were basically sent out, this year is more special, due to the innovation of woodblock New Year painting ornaments, coupled with people's awareness has improved, although it has entered the Wax Moon, but the orders still continue to come in, calculating that this year's order volume is double that of last year." He told reporters that if the New Year paintings want to be passed on, there must be new things to keep up with the times, "why the past New Year paintings can be handed down, is also because there are new tricks every year, renovated every year."
Zhang Yunxiang, the inheritor of Weifang woodblock new year paintings, brushed and printed woodblock new year paintings. The video was provided by the interviewee and produced by Beijing News reporter Geng Ziye
Farming is the mainstay, and the older generation doing New Year paintings is only a "side business"
Before the 1980s, there were 19 villages around Weixian (now Weifang City) in Shandong Province, and Yangjiabu Village was one of them, and people at that time were still called "Weixian New Year Paintings". Zhang Yunxiang is a native of Weifang, influenced by his father, and clearly understands the development of Weixian New Year painting. "In the early days, Weixian New Year paintings were divided into three categories: coarse goods New Year paintings, fine goods New Year paintings, and black goods New Year paintings, and at that time, there were also 'Xingtou' to formulate industry rules, which were similar to the current associations, and restricted the villagers who made New Year paintings."
At that time, the production of woodblock New Year paintings was scattered in different villages, and the sales of woodblock New Year paintings were concentrated in Weixian Daji or Yangjiabu Village. The skills of the locals in Weixian to make New Year paintings are also passed down from Yangjiabu Village, and it can be said that Yangjiabu is the birthplace of Weixian New Year paintings. After the 1990s, people began to call Yangjiabu woodblock prints, and then applied for national intangible cultural heritage.
"Minzi Mountain" woodblock print. Courtesy of respondents
Zhang Yunxiang's father, Zhang Dianying, was a college student in the 1950s, majoring in fine arts, engaged in art education after graduation, and later worked full-time as a woodblock print. In 1991, Zhang Dianying sorted out and published the book "Yangjiabu New Year Painting", which sorted out the inheritance of local New Year paintings in Weifang. Zhang Yunxiang's family still collects the original new year paintings from the Qing Dynasty to the present.
"Many people say that in the past, people made a living by making New Year paintings, which was actually wrong." Zhang Yunxiang said that in the past, the older generation made New Year paintings only as a side business, and most of the time people spent all year planting land, only waiting for the agricultural leisure time to make New Year paintings to supplement the family. Earlier sales of New Year paintings were short-lived, focusing only on the first 20 days. At that time, there was also a rule for doing New Year paintings, that is, "changing new clothes", that is to say, changing New Year paintings is the same as changing clothes, every year to change new, this year's Prints, this year must be sold out, for a craftsman, selling old New Year paintings will lose credibility.
New Year paintings must have drama, and they must not be tired of looking at them
Going back further, Zhang Yunxiang's grandfather also made woodblock prints. Under the influence of his father, Zhang Yunxiang began to learn the engraving of woodblock new year paintings from the age of 14, and then he resigned from the printing factory and devoted himself to the creation of new year paintings full-time, which was more than 40 years. Nowadays, Zhang Yunxiang is the inheritor of Weifang woodblock prints, and the neighbors call him "New Year Painting Zhang", which is a good name and a driving force for Zhang Yunxiang.
In the Weifang woodblock print industry, there are a few words circulating, the first is that "painting is not serious, good looks are in the middle." Zhang Yunxiang introduced, that is to say, the creation of woodblock New Year paintings is more casual, there is no fixed mode, in the past New Year painting is the art of the public, in the ten people must have five or six people like, the painting must be good to have a market, the painting shop will be engraved and printed. There is also a sentence that "The New Year painting must have a play, and it is not tired to look at it." "This is to say that there must be a story in the New Year paintings, and there must be a head of contemplation, so that people will feel more and more interesting the more they look at them," these Tips for the creation of Weixian New Year paintings are still applicable to this day. ”
In Zhang Yunxiang's newly created woodblock prints of the Year of the Tiger, the image of the descending tiger has changed, and in order to meet the upcoming Year of the Tiger, Zhang Yunxiang redesigned the Tiger Year Painting, and the composition and color have been innovative. Zhang Yunxiang introduced that this is an image of a tiger descending from the mountain, a tiger coming down from a high mountain, implying that the tiger is to the blessing. In the past, in the folk, the family generally hung Crouching Tiger, downhill tiger, rich people, officials, etc. hung on the mountain tiger, different forms of tiger meaning is different.
Zhang Yunxiang's newly created woodblock prints of the Year of the Tiger. Courtesy of respondents
The work must evolve with the times. In the past, the New Year paintings were divided into seven categories, and kangtou paintings were one of them, named after the people who hung around the kang in the past, and the content was mostly folklore, opera stories, myths and legends. Kangtou painting is also the TV on the wall, one picture and one story, one painting and one legend. In the Kangtou painting, a picture includes a lot of content, which is good to look at and has a good look.
In the traditional woodblock prints, each painting has an allegorical meaning inside, including superficial meaning and deep meaning. For example, Zhang Yunxiang's "Nian Nian Yu" New Year painting, on the surface, looks like a child holding a fish, but a closer look is that this child leans on the fish, and the back of the fish is also underneath, which also includes "more than one generation".
Zhang Yunxiang's woodblock print "More than One Year in a Row". Courtesy of respondents
Craftsmanship has a "successor"
On January 7, Zhang Yunxiang posted a video in the circle of friends with the text "The road of inheritance is long, we are on the road." In the video, some students are drawing New Year paintings, studying ancient techniques and learning traditional techniques. Unlike other colleagues, Zhang Yunxiang is very confident in the inheritance of woodblock prints.
In Shiwat Garden, where Zhang Yunxiang's studio is located, the atmosphere of intangible cultural heritage is very strong, and the intangible cultural heritage space of the park gathers intangible cultural heritage items such as kite tying, nuclear carving, embroidery, gourd painting, and old cat lanterns. In August of the previous year, Zhang Yunxiang's studio was officially settled in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Space of Shiwat Garden, where activities such as research and public welfare experience were carried out, and new communication channels were added to the woodblock Prints.
In this intangible cultural heritage space, children can participate in the New Year Painting Experience Project, from which they can learn about the knowledge of the New Year painting and understand the brush printing of the New Year painting. Zhang Yunxiang said that in order to pass on the traditional skills, he only symbolically collected material fees, traditional culture has been slowly forgotten by people, and now there are some warmers through publicity, tuition fees are too high to easily hit people's enthusiasm for learning, can not let the "tuition" to scare students away.
"For children, traditional things allow them to learn subtly, and children can calm down." Zhang Yunxiang talked about these children who learn new year painting to be very happy, for example, there was a little boy who came here to learn New Year painting before, and at the beginning he always looked at his mobile phone, after 3 weeks of study, he basically did not play mobile phones and could concentrate on learning to draw. Now is different from the past, the children learn the conditions for woodblock new year painting is much better, in the process of painting, Zhang Yunxiang will tell the children the meaning of each new year painting, they can also remember accurately.
More than six years after opening the studio, Zhang Yunxiang received many "apprentices", he told reporters that this year's children to learn more than in previous years, it turned out that there were more children over 9 years old, and the 4-5 years old children in the past two years also began to learn. Following Zhang Yunxiang for a long time to learn woodblock prints, there are currently four children, the longest has been studying for four years, one is 6 years old, every Saturday morning to the studio to learn.
All children who are really interested in New Year painting, Zhang Yunxiang teaches for free, in order to pass on the traditional skill of New Year painting.
You can't think too much about making a new year painting
When it comes to the livelihood of New Year paintings, Zhang Yunxiang is not worried. On the one hand, the studio has a fixed customer, the son is married, the work income is very stable, and he will come to the studio to help engrave during the holidays; on the other hand, in order to inherit the woodblock prints, the family has made a lot of reserves. In the 90s of last century, when the pear trees were replaced, Zhang Yunxiang and his father bought a large number of pear trees in Shandong Province, and some villagers did not want money, and it did not cost much money to collect pear trees at that time, but only spent some freight processing fees.
The woodblock prints are exquisite, and the pear wood selected for the engraving should be dried after being soaked, boiled and other water treatment, and then dried after the water treatment is dried, and the woodblock is not deformed after the water treatment is dried. Zhang Yunxiang told reporters that at present, 99% of the country's woodblock new year paintings use pear wood, because the wood of pear wood is more delicate, the density between the annual rings and the annual rings is consistent, and the thin lines can stand.
Nowadays, Zhang Yunxiang's home also has many original editions of New Year paintings, the Qing Dynasty has more than 300 sets, the Republic of China has more than 20 sets, of which the thinnest version is only half a centimeter, to know that the original engraved version is at least 4-5 cm thick, the thinner the version left behind, the better the sales at that time.
These originals are of great help to the father and son to study the woodblock New Year paintings, "the original old version is no longer engraved, the past New Year painting skills have reached the peak, can not surpass it, and then the engraving can only be carved out of its shape, Shen Yun can not be engraved." ”
At that time, the pear wood that Zhang Yunxiang and his father received had been processed into pear wood plates and stored, about ten cubic meters, and if they wanted to be made into A4 paper-sized plates, they could at least make about 100,000 pieces, "I will definitely not be able to use them in my life." ”
If you want to master the technique of making New Year paintings, you must have at least ten years of experience. In order to make the New Year painting more original, Zhang Yunxiang gave up the common paper used for crude printing and remodeled the pulp paper that was more suitable for the use of the New Year painting, and the expression of color was more full. In 2017, Zhang Yunxiang relied on his previous work experience in the paper mill, reserved nearly 6 tons of rice paper in advance, with the reserve of engraving and rice paper raw materials, the cost of making New Year paintings fell, Zhang Yunxiang said bluntly, now he has no pressure to do woodblock New Year paintings, thanks to the full preparation for promotion before.
"What I'm thinking about now is how to let the traditional New Year painting techniques stay, and if you think too much about profit, the creation will be constrained." Zhang Yunxiang said.
It's time for the New Year paintings to go to the museum? The heirs did not believe it
Many people say that the New Year painting should enter the museum, but Zhang Yunxiang does not think so.
In terms of the inheritance of New Year paintings, Zhang Yunxiang said that in the memory of many young people, this is just a traditional folk art of the New Year, most people do not have a deep understanding of new year paintings, and if the New Year paintings want to be passed on, there must be new things to keep up with the times.
Previously, Zhang Yunxiang created the 24 solar terms woodblock prints, following the production method of woodblock prints, drawing on Chinese painting and watercolor painting techniques in composition and color. Carefully examined among them, each detail of the original creation has a unique creative idea, "vertical composition means smooth, the word and figure are in a one-character shape, plus the middle circular seal, which means 101, that is, the hundred feet of pole head is further, the middle seal is round, yang carving, the following seal is square, yin carving, meaning yin and yang and the meaning of the heavenly circle place." "It can be said that the whole work has an auspicious meaning.
Zhang Yunxiang's "Twenty-Four Solar Terms" woodblock new year painting. Courtesy of respondents
In the past, it was a necessity of the new year, and now that people's home environment has changed, it is definitely not welcome to still push old things out of the market, "why can the past New Year paintings be handed down, because every year there are new tricks, renovated every year."
The twenty-four solar terms of the New Year paintings were welcomed by people, and once they were launched, Zhang Yunxiang received orders for 300 sets, which brought Great confidence to Zhang Yunxiang. He believes that the handicraft skills remain unchanged, but the content is innovative, through the re-creation of the New Year paintings, so as to stimulate the young people's love for the New Year paintings, so that more people can learn the New Year paintings, and there will be no cultural loss and no successors.
Woodblock New Year painting market is still "mixed"
The original New Year paintings are aimed at ordinary people, and every year every household changes the New Year paintings. Nowadays, most of Zhang Yunxiang's orders come from big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other cities, cultural parks, enterprise companies, etc., customized souvenirs for its employees and customers, and most of these customers. Now people like the theme of the New Year painting is the New Year, playing spring cattle, the god of wealth, etc., in the past it was pasted on the kangtou, now it is installed with a mirror frame, and the way and position of hanging are more casual.
Zhang Yunxiang said frankly that the new year painting market is still facing some bottlenecks, sometimes people who want to buy new year paintings can't buy them, don't know where to buy, people who want to sell New Year paintings can't sell them, and don't know how to sell. In addition, the New Year paintings sold on the Internet also have some situations where it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, and it is good to see the pictures on the Internet, but the actual New Year paintings received by consumers are not handmade woodblock New Year paintings.
How to identify a real handmade woodblock print? To this end, Zhang Yunxiang reminded consumers that the real woodblock New Year painting is hand-engraved, hand-brushed, even if it is the same craftsman, at the same time, with the same plate, but due to the difference in strength and location, the woodblock New Year paintings made are not the same, consumers can take a closer look at the local details of the New Year paintings when buying the New Year paintings, if the same pattern of lines and colors are exactly the same, it is likely to be machine engraving, hand brush printing, or machine made.
Handmade woodblock prints, each one is unique.
The production cost of The New Year painting is high, the main cost comes from labor costs and material costs, in addition, there is a 5%-10% waste rate of handmade New Year paintings. Zhang Yunxiang introduced, woodblock New Year painting is a color a picture, the simplest New Year painting also needs four colors, to change the plate four times, in the manual brush printing, the woodblock is easy to move, the position is changed, it will produce a certain amount of waste, the cost will go up, the cost of a woodblock New Year painting to more than ten yuan.
Most of the online sales of "fakes" have a greater impact on the market of woodblock Prints, making people lose trust in the purchase of New Year paintings through online channels. However, Zhang Yunxiang believes that with the passage of time, after people's understanding of woodblock New Year paintings deepens, those products that pretend to be handmade woodblock New Year paintings will naturally be eliminated. New Year painting inheritance for hundreds of years, there is still a market, when it comes to the future development of woodblock New Year painting, Zhang Yunxiang hopes, through the union of Tianjin, Sichuan, Hebei, Shandong and other major production areas, launch a professional association, let peers become friends, share New Year painting techniques, let the New Year painting from the New Year's wind into people's daily life.
Beijing News reporter Geng Ziye
Edited by Tang Zheng Proofreader Jia Ning