Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Sun Lei correspondent Wu Qidong Wang Liang
Photo: Ratty Li Yuanqing
The beginning of the spring is near, and it is the time to resign the old and welcome the new. On the occasion of the Year of the Tiger, Southern Media and Nanfeng Academy specially held a special exhibition on Lingnan New Year customs "Taste of the Year, The Joy of the Festival".
The exhibition includes an introduction to traditional Lingnan New Year customs, intangible cultural heritage art such as New Year paintings and paper cutting, Lingnan New Year custom publications, traditional Lingnan halls, Lingnan famous paintings, etc., so that the audience can feel the strong Lingnan New Year flavor. The exhibition will start on the same day and last until February 28.
This exhibition begins with a series of introductions to traditional Lingnan New Year customs, depicting the overall style of the Spring Festival in Guangdong.
Starting from the 23rd day of the Waxing Moon, the curtain of the "Spring Festival Overture" slowly opened, with the intention of "resigning the old and welcoming the new", stringing together a complete set of ceremonies to clean up the old things and open a new look, and the ancient Annual customs continued until the fifteenth day of the first month.
Among them, some customs such as visiting the flower street, washing sloppy, etc. are still prosperous to this day, and some customs such as the 23rd festival of the new year, the worship of the god of wealth on the second day of the new year, etc., were once an indispensable part of the Lingnan Spring Festival, but they are gradually fading away with the development of the times.
However, whether it is a new custom or an old custom, the heavy sense of ritual carried in it is the beautiful expectation of the people in Lingnan for the new year, and also constitutes a common cultural gene that is deeply rooted in the minds of Chinese. This exhibition depicts this annual ritual one by one on the axis of time, with timeless and delicate tones, painting pictures of sound and color, leading the audience through the past and the present, and revisiting a complete Lingnan Spring Festival.
The highlights of the exhibition are two national intangible cultural heritage techniques with Guangdong characteristics and traditional traditional culture - Foshan woodblock prints and Guangdong paper-cutting.
Foshan woodblock prints began in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, flourished in the Ming Dynasty, flourished in the Early Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, and are on a par with Tianjin Yangliuqing, Suzhou Taohuawu and Shandong Weifang New Year Paintings, and are one of the four major woodblock Prints in China. It was once an important decoration for the festivals and houses in Lingnan, and in the past it sold well throughout Lingnan and even overseas, carrying people's yearning and wishes for a better life.
Through the exquisite and delicate artistic techniques of the producers, as well as the complex and exquisite craftsmanship, it has realized large-scale and high-quality color printing under the conditions of ancient technology, full of the diligence and wisdom of the ancestors of Lingnan, and is a witness to the high prosperity of the handicraft industry in ancient Foshan. However, due to the change of the times, it was gradually weakened by the impact of modern lifestyles, and even disappeared completely.
It was not until the end of the 1990s that Feng Bingtang, the son of the famous New Year painting artist Feng Jun (nicknamed "Door Shenjun"), gave up his original career to realize his father's last wish, re-studied and studied, and only then did the woodblock New Year paintings reappear in the sky.
The Feng's Nian Painting Workshop, which he founded, is the only existing workshop in Foshan that is still insisting on the production of New Year paintings, and this exhibition exhibits a full set of production tools and production processes of The Feng's Nian Painting Workshop, as well as representative works such as "Door God" and "God of Wealth". The simple and clumsy woodblock prints depict a deep Lingnan imprint with knives and pencils; exquisite engravings one by one, passing on unique New Year customs and blessings from the past to the present.
Foshan woodblock print "God of Wealth"
Guangdong paper-cutting is another national intangible cultural heritage project in this exhibition. Many paper-cutting masters and enthusiasts throughout Guangdong are currently engaged in or learning the art of paper-cutting, which is still alive and well today.
The paper-cut exhibits in this exhibition come from non-genetic inheritors and enthusiasts in Foshan, Shantou Chaoyang, Leizhou and other places, which not only inherit the ancient intangible cultural heritage skills, show the colorful regional characteristics of Lingnan, but also combine the preferences of modern people to boldly innovate in artistic style and picture content.
On the paper as thin as a cicada's wing, it is exquisitely carved like an embroidery, so that the scenery is staggered and vivid. These works are not only masterpieces of art in themselves, but also full of festive and auspicious New Year atmosphere, which can be said to be both form and god.
Foshan lining paper-cut "Dragon and Lion Dance"
It is worth mentioning that Nanfeng Bookstore also provides a sales platform for New Year paintings and paper cutting, driving the ancient intangible cultural heritage to the market, to young people, and to renew its vitality.
The display of Lingnan New Year's Customs and Fine Publications is a feature of this exhibition, showing the persistence and efforts of Guangdong publishers to promote Lingnan culture.
The Guangdong Publishing Group and Southern Media, which are rooted in Lingnan, have launched more than 2,000 lingnan cultural books over the years. It also includes a large number of excellent books on Lingnan New Year customs, including popular reading materials that comprehensively introduce Lingnan New Year customs, as well as literary works that write about Lingnan festival customs; academic classics full of cultural heritage, as well as very interesting children's and student books.
In particular, from the 1960s to the 1980s, the Guangdong People's Publishing House launched more than 100 kinds of new New Year paintings, recording a series of New Year styles with great characteristics of the times, which have always been welcomed and loved by the masses in urban and rural areas of Lingnan. They recreate the colorful Lingnan culture from the time that has flown by, and meet the audience in this exhibition.
Guangdong People's Publishing House published New Year Paintings in 1981
In addition, the exhibition also has rich contents such as traditional Lingnan halls and Lingnan famous paintings, antique furniture, and Chinese paintings and oil paintings by a number of Danqing masters and famous masters, which further enhance the humanistic style of the exhibition and also bring a unique cultural and artistic experience to the audience.
China's excellent traditional culture is the cultural root of the Chinese nation. The organizers said that at a time when the pace of life is accelerating, the cultural roots need our nourishment even more. I hope that every visitor can evoke the memories of the Spring Festival in their hearts and feel this endless cultural root from the Lingnan New Year Customs Exhibition and the rich traditional New Year's taste. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News • Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Pine nuts
【Source: Yangcheng Evening News】
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