Yang Futao, the descendant of Yang Jiabu woodblock prints: the knife rises and falls, carving the expectations for life

According to legend, the woodblock prints from the Ming Dynasty's Hongwu years from Chuan into Lu, by chance in Weifang's Yangjiabu to take root. The ancestors of that year took up hoes to work in the fields when the farmers were busy, and picked up carving knives and brushes when the farmers were idle, carved woodblocks, and printed New Year paintings. After more than 650 years of inheritance and development, this foreign craft has become one of the most distinctive cultural symbols in Weifang. Recently, Yang Futao, the representative inheritor of the second batch of weifang woodblock new year paintings, told reporters about the past and present lives of this old craft, and also told how generations of new year painters used knives to carve their expectations for life.

At the age of 19, he took over his father's mantle

It has changed

This 30-year-old "Yang Teacher's Heirloom Shop" is located less than 500 meters away from Yangjiabu Folk Art Grand View Garden. Push the door in, the kite hanging in the middle of the room, the paper-cut cultural and creative products piled up like a hill, and the gift box make this room of about 20 square meters more crowded. It was in this messy-looking shop that Yang Futao took over the mantle of his father Yang Luoshu, carved countless woodblocks, and printed countless New Year paintings.

Yang Futao, who is engraving

There are only two old yang futao in the store. Yang Futao's wife is printing New Year paintings by the window, and behind her are all kinds of printed works. There is only the sound of brushing paint and paper turning in the store.

"Compared with some other intangible cultural heritage projects, the current situation of Yangjiabu woodblock prints is still ideal." Yang Futao sat in front of his workbench and told reporters that although this small shop is not remarkable, it can bring him an income of 400,000 to 500,000 yuan a year.

Yang Futao told reporters that there are still seven or eight stores like him in Yangjiabu, which are mainly engraved and printed. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were 70 or 80 workshops in Yangjiabu that made woodblock prints. The world has changed, and now the only seven or eight stores that remain have supported the entire Woodblock New Year painting industry in Weifang.

Yang Futao remembers that in the mid-1980s, when he was in his early twenties, customers who came to the door to queue up for pickup could wait up to a week, "At that time, our family just hired 6 printers." ”

But the development of woodblock prints has not been smooth. From the doorway to Kurama, it is only a matter of "a moment".

"The son has grown up,

But I didn't want to be me."

When Yang Futao was 19 years old, his father Yang Luoshu spent several years teaching what he had learned all his life and handing over this ancestral craft to his hands.

In Yang Futao's view, his father Yang Luoshu is an insurmountable mountain. In 2002, UNESCO awarded Yang Luoshu the honorary title of "Master of Folk Arts and Crafts", and as the 19th generation of the "Tongshunde" of Yangjiabu Centennial Painting Shop in Weifang, Shandong, Yang Luoshu is the representative inheritor of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects Yangjiabu woodblock prints.

Times have changed, and now when Yang Futao becomes a father, his son is no longer willing to choose the same path as him.

The son was born in 1997 and now works for a pharmaceutical company in Qingdao. The son did not want to give up his job to inherit the family craft, which made Yang Futao, who was 59 years old, feel helpless. "There's a song that's not like that, 'I'll be you when I grow up,' and I'm now like my father, but in my generation, no one wants to be me."

Finding heirs is a problem that every generation of intangible cultural heritage craftsmen must face, and now this problem has become a problem for Yang Futao. One of the words that my son often said to Yang Futao was, "You can also make money by doing other things." For Yang Futao, this is not an economic problem, but a more important proposition for the inheritance of craftsmanship.

At the crossroads of life, two generations have diametrically opposed considerations.

Yang Futao said that he had also recruited apprentices, first "starting" from young people in the circle of relatives. "At that time, going abroad was a very beautiful thing, I used this thing to attract them, I said as long as you step into the door of my painting shop, as long as there is an opportunity to go abroad to communicate, I will take you, after coming I will do you just look at it, see it and then get started." However, most people visited the master on a whim, and after a few days of persistence, they never came again.

Even if Yang Futao took the initiative to subsidize the meal money and fare, no one insisted in the end. "Outsiders can't count on it, so I can only count on my son."

In order to increase his son's interest in this old craft, in 2016, Yang Futao took his son to participate in the woodblock New Year Painting Advanced Seminar held by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. After consultation, Yang Futao and his son reached a consensus - the father taught his son, but the son could not engage in this business.

The future daughter-in-law has also become Yang Futao's hope. "Now the son does not have a daughter-in-law, and when he has a daughter-in-law, he will hand over this stall to the daughter-in-law to manage, and the two of us will retreat to the second-line management." As long as the daughter-in-law is willing to take over this matter, she will not worry about her son not doing it. The wife on the side also echoed a few words of approval.

Make woodblock prints

With the artist's heartbeat and breath

Yang Futao introduced that in the 90s of last century, machine-printed New Year paintings appeared in Yangjiabu. Around 2010, the handicraft workshop of vesta's year painting was brought out of the market by machine production. Yang Futao said, however, if they are collectibles and works of art, machine-produced New Year paintings are worthless.

In Yang Futao's view, the charm of hand-made is largely due to the fact that the whole process of new year painting production is inseparable from people's creation. Computers can also be engraved, carved out of orderly, consistent depth, but lifeless. And the hand engraving, with the artist's heartbeat and breathing, the knife up and down, can be carved according to the mood, can also be made in one go, an ordinary wooden board because it is contaminated with human sweat to have an aura. With that, Yang Futao picked up his tools and gave a demonstration.

Over the course of two hours of the interview, Yang Futao's wife, Cui Quanfeng, had been printing woodblock prints. She took the brush in her right hand and dipped it in the mixed paint and brushed it on the carved woodblock. After several repetitions, a bright woodblock New Year painting appeared on the white paper, and the thick and colorful color blocks contrasted with each other, but it showed an inexplicable harmony and vitality. A woodblock New Year painting needs to be printed at least 6 times, and Cui Quanfeng can print up to 400 pictures a day, that is to say, the same action, Cui Quanfeng has to repeat 2400 times a day.

Mom-and-pop shops like Yang Futao and Cui Quanfeng are now common collocations. From the initial self-employed side business, to later become an industry that drives the economic development of one party, and now it has returned to the model of a husband and wife shop, the future may return to a side business, the development of Yangjiabu woodblock prints, constantly circling with the times, in different eras to find the most suitable way of operation.

Qilu Evening News reporter Li Xuxu Wei Xiaoxian Yu Xiaoxue trainee reporter Xu Yijie Sun Bingqian