As the saying goes, after the eighth year is the year, not pasting the New Year painting is not the New Year. New Year paintings are not only decorations for festivals, but also have profound humanistic and artistic value. Among them, the most representative woodblock prints in the north are the Yangliu Youth Paintings in Tianjin. On the occasion of the arrival of the Year of the Tiger in 2022, the "Fuhu Yingxiang - Yangliu Qing Woodblock Prints Exhibition" co-sponsored by the Printmaking Art Committee of the China Artists Association, tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society, and Beijing Zizhuyuan Park Management Office, undertaken by the Beijing Royal Garden Calligraphy and Painting Research Association, and co-organized by Beijing Yuanshi Zhixing Cultural Development Co., Ltd., was held from January 12 to March 27 at the Zizhuyuan Park Palace in Beijing.
Poster of YangLiuQing Woodblock Print Exhibition
The scene of the opening ceremony of the exhibition
The exhibition is co-curated by Zheng Zuoliang, a famous printmaker and former director of the Collection Department of the National Art Museum of China, and Wang Lijun, secretary general of the Comic Art Committee of the China Artists Association. The whole exhibition has a total of 100 exhibits, which not only display various content of the New Year paintings, including historical stories, myths and legends, secular life, flowers, birds, fish and insects, opera stories, etc., but also set up a special exhibition hall to introduce the new year painting production process and the inheritor video, to help the audience better understand the style of new year paintings in different regions, and contribute to the contemporary inheritance of new year paintings. Among them, the Zixiao Hall (Hall 1) of the Zizhuyuan Palace mainly displays important collections and fine works of Yangliu Qingmublock New Year paintings, as well as New Year painting products in the form of glass, porcelain, albums, etc.; Jing Yi Zhai (Hall 2) introduces the New Year paintings from all over the country and the detailed production process and tools of Yangliu Youth Paintings in rich graphic forms; Qijunzhai (Hall 3) focuses on displaying festival customs, Twenty-four Filial Pieties and other themes of Yangliu Qingmu Prints, as well as interview videos of the inheritors of Yangliu Youth Paintings Tianxiangzhai (Hall 4) displays a willow woodblock print with the theme of secular life.
Yang Liu Qing woodblock prints are fine and collectible
A detailed demonstration of the production process of The Willow Youth Painting
Festival Customs Woodblock Print "Lantern Appreciation Celebration Map"
Wang Hemin, former head of the discipline inspection team of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in the Ministry of Commerce, Yang Chengzhi, vice chairman of the Ninth China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and secretary of the Secretariat, Yan Dongsheng, secretary of the Party Committee of the National Art Museum of China, Wan Xuanrong, head of the Lin Jialin Children's Education and Development Fund, Xu Pengfei, honorary director of the Comic Arts Committee of the China Artists Association, and dozens of representatives of relevant art institutions in Beijing attended the opening ceremony of the day.
Yangliuqing woodblock prints absorb the essence of Chinese gongbi heavy color painting and folk printmaking art, forming a unique style that not only has the charm of woodcuts with vigor and beauty, but also loses the characteristics of traditional national painting. Dai Daquan, deputy director of the Printmaking Art Committee of the China Artists Association and professor of the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, said with deep feeling at the exhibition site: "From the New Year paintings, we can not only feel the atmosphere of the New Year Festival, but also see how Chinese culture can be interpreted in the folk. Chinese painting, whether traditional or contemporary, draws the energy of artistic language from folk, folklore and ethnic groups. Therefore, when we face the woodblock Prints, we feel far richer than the content shown on the picture, that is, in addition to the surface texture form, there is a deeper cultural inheritance and national spirit. ”
Liu Yue, secretary of Tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society, sent a congratulatory message for the exhibition and said that this exhibition is the first exhibition held by the painting company in 2022, which not only welcomes the New Year with traditional New Year paintings, but also greets the Beijing Winter Olympics in this way. It is understood that Tianjin Yangliuqing Painting Society was established in 1958, now treasures more than 10,000 annual paintings, more than 6400 ancient plates, as a national intangible cultural heritage project protection unit, its complete and systematic inheritance of Yangliu Qing woodblock new year painting hook, engraving, printing, painting, mounting five skills of the craft system, has a large number of non-genetic inheritors. The woodblock prints on display this time inherit the ancient Printing and Painting of traditional New Year paintings, and fully embody the artistic characteristics of Yangliu Youth Painting' vigorous workmanship and half-printing and half-painting.
Regarding the contemporary inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage such as New Year paintings, Yuan Li, an adviser to the Chinese Folk Writers Association, said in a congratulatory letter that although New Year paintings have a living inheritance in reality, many traditional old looks are difficult to see. This exhibition brings so many traditional classics, which can not only let the audience know the past of Yang Liu Youth's paintings, but also provide a way of thinking about their future direction. In this regard, Yang Jing, secretary of the Party Committee and director of the Zizhuyuan Park Management Office in Beijing, echoed from another perspective: "The Zizhuyuan Palace is an interactive activity that regularly holds exhibitions of history, culture, intangible cultural heritage and other exhibitions and traditional festivals, and in the process of continuously promoting the construction of high-quality cultural spaces, it constantly promotes the excellent traditional Chinese culture and allows more children and young people to be nourished." ”
Peripheral cultural and creative products
Tianjin Yangliu Qing woodblock prints began in the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty (about 1628 AD), and reached the peak of the Yongzheng, Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty (about 1723-1820). Tianjin Yangliuqing Town and its nearby villages "family will be dyed, household good Danqing", is a veritable painting town, the production of New Year paintings are sold throughout the country, inherited so far, has a history of more than 400 years. The early Yangliu Qing woodblock prints belong to the relatively simple process of manuscript paintings, that is, the painter uses thin flour paper to copy multiple copies after completing the line draft, and then fills in the color. Later, due to the surge in demand, the use of woodblock printing means, drawing ink line drawings, printing line blanks, and then overprinting the main colors with several color plates, and finally dyeing the details of the character's hand face, clothing and jewelry. It is precisely because of this "half-printed and half-painted" multi-color overprinting and hand-painted production process that its visual effect is not inferior to that of Chinese gongbi paintings rendered with rigorous brushwork and layers of color. Curator Zheng Zuoliang said in the preface to the exhibition: "In general, folk New Year paintings use color separation plates, while Yangliu Youth Paintings in addition to the cover, especially in the face and hands of key parts of the characters, they have added hand-painting techniques, called 'open hand faces'. This process directly affected the prosperous part of China's Silk Road in Xinjiang and even Central Asia. Yangliu Youth Painting inherits the painting tradition of the Court Painting Academy since the Northern Song Dynasty, especially absorbing the heavy color technique of traditional Chinese painting, which is the biggest feature that folk New Year paintings in other regions do not have. ”
In 2006, with the approval of the State Council, Yangliu Qing woodblock prints were included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. The times are changing, the society is developing, the art of Yangliu Qing woodblock prints has been further promoted with the trend of the times, how to continue and last forever, people in the new era are making answers.
(All pictures in this article are provided by the organizer)
Editor-in-charge: Jia Tingyi