Fengxiang County is one of the famous production areas of traditional woodblock prints in the mainland, and its history of producing woodblock prints can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty at the latest, and the printed New Year paintings are not only in this province, but also exported to the northwestern provinces and northern Sichuan, southern Jin, and western Henan.
Fengxiang woodblock prints have the artistic characteristics of rough and exaggerated character shapes, bright colors, among which there is a type of New Year painting commonly known as "Gu Yu Painting", which is born out of the folk belief of the Valley Rain Festival in Guanzhong, from the form content to the sticking habits, it shows different characteristics from other Types of New Year paintings. In addition, Fengxiang's Guyu paintings are not only for the province to paste, but also exported to neighboring Gansu, Shanxi and other places similar to the customs and habits of the Guanzhong region, with a large amount of posting and use, and a wide range of popularization, making Guyu paintings a representative category in Fengxiang's New Year paintings.
The transmission of Gu Yu Festival and Gu Yu paintings
Gu Yu, taken from the meaning of "rain born hundred valleys", is the sixth solar term of the twenty-four solar terms, between Qingming and Lixia, and belongs to the last solar term of spring. Valley rain, generally for the late spring of the third month of the lunar calendar, when the cold weather is basically over, the temperature rises rapidly, the ensuing precipitation gradually increases, the air humidity increases, especially suitable for the growth of cereal crops, so the "Qunfang Spectrum" is loaded: "Valley rain, valley rain and birth also." "From the beginning of the valley rain, animals such as snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes and mosquitoes also entered the growth and reproduction period, began to move frequently, and spread the plague.
In various parts of the mainland, there are many customs of the valley rain festival, such as drinking valley rain tea, valley rain sacrifice to the sea, "walking valley rain" strong physique, valley rain eating toon and so on. In the Guanzhong region of central Shaanxi, when the valley rains, local customs such as worshipping Wenzu Cangjie and posting guyu paintings are common. In the Huainan zi BenJing, it is recorded: "In the past, Cangjie wrote a book, but the sky rained and millet, and the ghosts cried at night." "Shaanxi Baishui, Luonan and other places are the places where Wenzu Cangjie was active, and there are Cangjie Temples in the local area, which still retain the activities of sacrificing Cangjie during the rain in the valley, and are accompanied by folk face flowers, folk music, folk opera, social fire and other folk art forms.
Chickens eat five poisons Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Shaanxi Fengxiang's Guyu painting is a type of New Year painting unique to the local area, posted before and after the valley rain, and is commonly known as "Guyu Sticker". The content of such New Year paintings is mostly the Heavenly Master's removal of the five poisons, the chicken eating the five poisons, the town house god judgment, the piano playing the piano to reduce the poison of the boy, etc., and some of the New Year paintings are also attached with words and incantations such as "In the middle of the valley rain in March, the snake and scorpion will never be born, and the Taishang Laojun will be the law", "Gu Yu march and a half, the scorpion will come to the case; pick up the kitchen cutting knife and cut off the scorpion's waist". This is because the temperature rises after the valley rain, and the disease and insect pests enter the high breeding period, in order to alleviate the harm of diseases and insect pests to crops and people, the local posting of valley rain stickers to drive away the murder of Najib, pinning people to check the killing of insects, hope for a good harvest, peace of mind. It is not known when Gu Yu painting originated, but according to the late Shaanxi Fengxiang woodblock print heir Tai Yi wrote before his death: "Gu Yu stickers were circulated in the world at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and were quite popular in Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, from the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression to the founding of the People's Republic of China. After liberation, few people gave birth, and no customs were posted in the countryside. After smashing the 'Gang of Four', with the recovery of Fengxiang woodblock prints, when producing New Year paintings, some producers also produced them as New Year paintings, listed before the Spring Festival, and sold as New Year paintings. From this passage, it can be seen that at least at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province has begun to popularize the use of Gu Yu paintings, and people classify them as one of the new year paintings, and the new year painting workshops complete the production, production and sales. In addition, according to Mr. Tai Yi's other articles, in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, just before and after the Xinhai Revolution, the active thinking made fengxiang local new year painting content innovative, at this time Fengxiang folk painters not only created a number of guyu paintings from their own new year painting traditions, but also integrated the style and characteristics of new year paintings in Hebei and other places in the form of new year paintings, so that the local valley rain paintings were enriched and developed, and the annual output reached hundreds of thousands or even millions, in addition to sales in Baoji, Xi'an, Xianyang, Weinan and other places. It also spread to Tongchuan and even neighboring eastern Gansu and southern Shanxi. In the 1980s, with the reform and opening up and the change of people's production and lifestyle, the production and sales of Gu Yu paintings gradually shrank, and in Fengxiang, only three annual painting workshops were produced, with an annual output and sales of less than 30,000 pieces, and the sales method was backward, most of them went to the market and villages after the Spring Festival to sell from house to house. Since the 1990s, due to the impact of the low price and rapid production of machine offset New Year paintings, coupled with the decline of folk customs and solar term culture in urban and rural areas of the mainland, and similar to other types of folk New Year paintings, the production and market of Gu Yu paintings have been more sluggish, only the representative heir of Fengxiang New Year paintings, Tai Liping's family, is in production, and the content is mostly praying for blessings and auspiciousness, and the content of driving away evil spirits is constantly decreasing or even stopping production.
There are almost no restrictions on the way and place of Fengxiang Valley rain paintings are attached, and the doors, window sashes, kiln nests (small niches dug out of the walls for storing and placing bits and pieces such as needles and threads), walls, and kangtou can generally be pasted with valley rain paintings. People paste and use such valley rain paintings during the rainy season, which not only has the effect of praying for blessings and disasters, but also can decorate the living room and beautify the environment. Historically, the production method of Gu Yu painting is also the same as that of ordinary New Year paintings, with woodblock engraving patterns, yellow mounted paper or ordinary paper printing, which can also explain the huge circulation and demand of Gu Yu paintings in the local area.
The pictorial form of Gu Yu's painting
Since its birth, Gu Yu painting has continued to evolve in terms of subject matter content, and gradually broke through its content and form in addition to the five poisons and spells, and expanded to the secular life related to people's daily life, the seasons of the year, ironic exhortations, landscape scenery, etc., forming a rich form of images, including secular figures, animals, gods and other image types. Among them, "Ten Busy Men", "Ten Busy Women", and "Twenty-Four Solar Terms", which reflect the life of farming, production, and the solar terms, "Mother-in-law Joy", "Grandfather And Grandson Music", and "Little Man Figure", which reflect the five poisons, "Chicken Eats Five Poisons" and "Zhang Tianshi Descends five poisons", which reflect the five poisons, and "The Divine Judgment of the Town House" and "The Judgment of the Spirit Treasure God", which reflect the evil spirits of the town house, are the most representative.
Male Ten Busy-1 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Male Ten Busy-2 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Female Ten Busy-1 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Female Ten Busy-2 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Shaanxi Guanzhong eight hundred miles Qinchuan since ancient times is a developed agricultural area, known as the "country of heaven", people attach importance to farming, Guanzhong area also circulated "before and after the valley rain, plant melons and beans" folk proverb, coupled with the gu yu painting sales object is mainly farmers, so Fengxiang valley rain painting has a large number of reflecting the working people's hard work and simple life portrayal of the content, such as "male ten busy", "female ten busy", "textile map", etc., these works to cultivate hoe plow, spin flower weaving, male cultivator female weaving as the main picture, each painting set up multiple people, the picture is full and rich, The layout is reasonable, which is in line with the psychology of the people seeking circles and seeking satisfaction. Among them, "Ten Busy Men" is a new year painting on the theme of agricultural affairs, and the two paintings depict labor scenes such as ploughing, hoeing, harvesting, and grinding, with a simple painting style and full of life atmosphere. In addition, there are also interesting idyllic scenes such as children delivering meals and eating on the ground. This "busy" person says that he is diligent and not lazy, working at sunrise and resting at sunset, and so on for generations to come, and enjoy himself. There are seven to ten figures on each frame, using a traditional flat composition, and the figures are naturally distributed in the picture, balanced and varied. The content of the picture comes from labor production, which is real and vivid. Corresponding to the "Female Ten Busy", "Textile Diagram" draws the scene and whole process of ancient hand-woven fabrics such as women's bullets, twisted threads, spinning threads, combined threads, pulp threads, warp threads, weaving fabrics, etc. The "Female Ten Busy" figures are painted with images of children, dogs, etc., rendering a lively and joyful atmosphere, and the small picture frame accommodates the assembly line-like manual operation process, and the level is clear, and there is no congestion, reflecting the living conditions of individual producers in a feudal society dominated by self-sufficiency. It also reflects the labor scenes of folk male cultivators and female weavers under the economic domination of small peasants, and is a true portrayal of the people's life in the traditional society of the mainland.
Bosun Xi Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Grandpa Sun Le Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
The New Year paintings of "Po Sun Xi" and "Grandpa Sun Le" are used to express the simple desire of traditional civil society people to be rich and happy, these works are depicted in meticulous and rigorous manners, the characters are looking forward to conveying the gods, and the composition is clever and compact, vivid and touching. These two New Year paintings mainly depict the two grandchildren, showing the happy scenes and cordial scenes of the grandfather and the grandson, reflecting the social society people enjoying the joy of the five grains after the harvest. The elderly man in the picture wears glasses and short coats, the old woman wears hair bands and wraps her feet, both of them are dressed in gorgeous clothes, and there are pets at home, which can spy the scene of social stability, people's prosperity, and happy and harmonious life during this period.
Villain Tu-1 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Villain Tu-2 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Although "Little Man Picture" and "Beating Mother-in-Law and Becoming a Donkey" are also depicting secular characters, the content is quite similar to the cartoons that satirize the society at that time, which has a certain religious significance. For example, "Little Man Figure" uses the form of "hidden language" to secretly ridicule the bad style of people who behave incorrectly, reflecting people's dissatisfaction with hypocritical and tilting behavior. In the picture, "holding up the pole and lifting the ladder" is a satire to lift people up to the stage after the day. The parable of "pinching a lonely horn in the white ground" is made out of nothing; the parable of "blowing and pinching and dissipating" is hypocritical and changeable; "eating sheep's head in the east and eating pigs in the west" refers to a kind of person who goes to the east and says that the west neighbor gives me a fat and large pig's head, and when he goes to the west, he says that the east neighbor gives me the beauty of the sheep's head, and both sides are afraid of the gift and sacrifice their heads, and their people take advantage of both ends; "loving money and drilling money eyes" is a greedy act of mocking only recognizing money; "seeing a whirlwind and competing for a fight" is even more satirical to meet the ugly state of being stuttering and inflammatory, all of which are denounced as villains (people with despicable behavior), so it is called "villain figures." This kind of painting can be the origin of Chinese comics. "Beating the Mother-in-Law into a Donkey" is also a type of Feng Xiangnian painting of good teaching, in order to educate the daughter-in-law to be filial to the mother-in-law, otherwise the heavenly Dongbin Lao Zu will turn it into a black donkey, and there is a poetry cloud on the painting: "Scolding the mother-in-law is too unwise, who knows that there is a blue sky on the head, the Dongbin Old Ancestor can't see it, and becomes a black donkey." This is one of the folk allusions, the picture is colorful, the text is witty and interesting to read, but it is educational. In addition, the folk "Twelve Genera Phases", the picture is divided into six grids, the book "rats and sheep two discord, snakes see tiger tears, pigs and monkeys are not harmonious, chickens and dogs tears long streams, rabbits and dragons have a grudge, white horses are afraid of green cattle" and other words, and with the image of the picture to illustrate, this is the Ming and Qing folk concept of mutual survival. In ancient times, people's marriage spouses often referred to this article, but like many New Year paintings, although this New Year painting had a role in a certain period of time, it was superstitious and was no longer believed by people.
Of course, the most core use function of Gu Yu painting is to remind the people to pay attention to anti-plague and insect pest prevention in the season when the temperature rises, so "Zhang Tianshi Drops Five Poisons", "Chicken Eats Five Poisons", "Lei Gong Drops Five Poisons" and so on have become the most posted type of Gu Yu paintings during the valley rainy season.
Zhang Tianshi descended five poisons Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Zhang Tianshi Descending Five Poisons, also known as "Five Thunder Charms", depicts Zhang Tianshi, the founder of the Wudou Rice Dao in the Eastern Han Dynasty, who is said to have taught people to believe in Taoism and used the Spell Water Spell to treat people, and later generations of Daoist disciples respected him as a Heavenly Master. In Song Liu Songnian's "Cultivation and Weaving Map", there is a painting of a peasant house with a tianshi practice certificate posted on it. It is known that the image of the Celestial Master was very popular in the Song Dynasty. This picture shows Zhang Tianshi sitting on a mountain stone, wearing a Bagua costume, raising his hand to sacrifice the five thunder charms to eliminate snakes, scorpions, toads, centipedes and other poisonous insects.
Lei Gong descended five poisons Shaanxi Fengxiang Shaanxi Provincial Group Art Museum Collection
In the "Five Poisons of Lei Gong Descending", another image of Lei Gong who drives away the five poisons appears, and the Lei Gong depicted in the painting is basically consistent with the Lei Gong recorded in Huang Feiran's "Collection of Interpretations of the Truth" in the late Qing Dynasty, that is, "like a soldier, with a naked chest and a frank abdomen, two wings in the back, three eyes on the forehead, a face as red as a monkey, a jaw long and sharp, feet like an eagle eagle, and claws are more powerful." The left hand holds the wedge, and the right hand holds the hammer, making a wish to strike. From the top to the side, there are five drums hanging in a row, and the left foot is coiled with a drum, called Lei Gong Jiang Tianjun", the "five poisons" below the picture see Lei Gong, scattered and fled, of which the snake and scorpion are anthropomorphized into human head worms, their faces are terrified, and the whole New Year painting is outlined in a wonderful portrait. Most of the Gu Yu paintings such as the boy contain the meaning of protecting children and protecting their children.
Lion Riding Boy Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
The boy on the screen of "The Lion Riding Boy" rides a green lion, holding a flag in one hand and a gun in the other, which is majestic. The inscription on the forehead reads: "In the rain in the Valley of March, the lion went down to the Heavenly Palace, did not eat human food, and ate the five poisonous essences." I offer the Lord Taishang laojun anxious as the law." The lion is the king of the hundred beasts, fierce and majestic, and the people think that they can drive away poison and eliminate disasters. This kind of painting of a boy riding a lion to lower the five poisonous essences was usually attached to the walls of the house in the old days to pray for peace and peace. In another painting, "Fat Baby Playing Three Strings", the boy has three peach black hair on his head, wears a cloud brocade-trimmed begonia flower dress, flower pants, wears a light-faced green shoe on his feet, sits on the ground on one knee, holds a three-stringed instrument in his arms, presses the string with his left hand, and plucks with his right hand. The strings are really moving. In addition to the inscription, there is also an inscription: "I serve the Taishang Laojun as anxious as the law" and spells. Folk artists created such children's theme of the valley rain painting, but also because the climate after the valley rain becomes hot, snakes, scorpions and other reptiles go out, children are ignorant, often hurt, so remind everyone to pay attention to safety, do not be bitten by insects.
Daji Dali Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Museum Collection
The most depicted animal figures in Fengxiang Valley Rain paintings are chickens and scorpions. Guanzhong folk have a proverb of "dog bites stupid, scorpion hook disaster", that scorpions will harm people and make them sick, as ominous things, while chickens are worshipped by local people as "GuYu General" because they are good at eating scorpions, and their forms are different from single chickens and double chickens, mainly taking the shape of their beaks and poisonous scorpions to ensure the safety and health of the people in the family. Among them, "Daji Dali" depicts a large rooster with a red crown, pecking a poisonous scorpion in the beak, and a spell in the upper right that reads" Gu Yu Ri, Gu Yu Chen, please Gu Yu General." Three cups of tea, four statues of wine, send scorpions thousands of miles into dust", the upper left and bottom of the picture are painted with peonies, because peonies bloom in the valley rain, so it is called "valley rain flower", plus peonies have the meaning of wealth, chicken and harmonic "auspicious", the two are painted in a picture to take the meaning of wealth and auspiciousness.
Single chicken Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
The same pattern also has a local commonly known "Single Chicken" New Year painting, the main pattern in the painting is the chicken and peony flowers, but the text on it is changed to "Scorpion nature is poisonous, and the chicken is opposed, a mouth into him, it is difficult to escape in a flash." I am as anxious as the law. ”
Chicken eats five poisons Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Museum collection
In addition, "Chicken Eats Five Poisons" depicts a scene of a hen leading the chickens to eat scorpions before and after the valley rain to fill their hunger, the hen lies in the center of the picture, the chickens are gathered around it, there is an "edict" spell on it, and there is "holding a nest to feed a nest, this nest is more than that nest; meet the scorpion pecking, a group of chickens are hungry and thirsty." "There are peony flowers that symbolize wealth and nobility next to it, and the whole picture avoids the meaning of murder and auspiciousness." "Two Chickens" depicts a boy and a girl riding on the back of a rooster in a belly pocket, holding banners of "Blessing from Heavenly Officials" and "Full of Blessings". The rooster pecks at a poisonous scorpion in each mouth, and in the middle is engraved a "Edict Thunder God" charm, which reads "The golden rooster in the sky cries out, and the jade chicken in the ground cries again." This painting was also sold to the Gansu region, and also belongs to the "fu gong painting" that people pasted on the door wall to prevent poisonous insects from harming children.
The image of "divine judgment" in Fengxiang Valley's rain paintings is relatively diverse, and the folk names are different, some are called "door judgment" and "judgment son", and some are directly called "judge". Gate judgment is a general term for the evil gods of ghost hunting towns in folk New Year paintings, and many paintings such as Zhong Kui and Tianshi are painted. "Judgment" has the meaning of adjudication and distinction, and in the ancient official system, there was a "judge", who was the subordinate of the local governor, handled public affairs, and decided the lawsuit. In local folklore, the judge is the official in charge of the ghosts of the "underground government" and the ruler of good and evil in the world. Some people also call the judge "official", which means the official who is in charge of the rich and the poor in the next life. In addition, in the "Hundred Plays" recorded in the "Tokyo Dream Record", there are "dance judgments", "a burst of the staff, a long hair with a false face, a green robe and boots, such as a statue of Zhong Kui, and a person who moves and dances with a small gong, which is called 'dance judgment'". "On the day of the exodus, the forbidden is a great ritual ... Teaching Fang Nanhe Charcoal ugly and fat, pretending to be a judge, and also installing Zhong Kui, Little Sister, Land, Vesta And the like, a total of more than a thousand people..." It can be seen that such images already existed during the Northern Song Dynasty.
The door judgment in Fengxiang Valley's rain painting is roughly divided into types such as "Riding Door Judgment", "Double Door Judgment", "Town House Divine Judgment" and "Lingbao Divine Judgment". The characters in "Horseback Riding Judgment" are fierce and mighty, wearing pheasant helmets across the horse, holding a large knife in one hand, and swinging around the pheasant plume in the other, both of which are flower faces, with a red beard and a white beard, murderous and quite intimidating. It is said that this character is shaped as Gai Suwen. Gai Suwen, also known as Yuan, changed his name to avoid Tang Gaozu Li Yuan's secrets, and was the military commander of the Goguryeo state, Xiao Yong was good at war. The New Book of Tang records that Gai Suwen "endured sexual violence." ...... Looks good, beautiful beard, crown dress are decorated with gold, five knives, left and right do not dare to look up. Make the nobles fall to the ground, and raise their horses. "Folk attach it to the door as a door god, believing that its mighty and ferocious image blocks ghosts." Another said that the two were the Eastern Han Dynasty figures Ma Wu and Yao Qi. Fengxiang locals refer to a pair of Hu chinese figures as "Double Door Judgment", but from the perspective of its human figure, it seems that it should be called "Hui hui jin bao", which is rare in other production areas of the country, or because Shaanxi is close to the northwest, it is more likely. Folk have the saying of "returning to the treasure", generally based on the image of the western people, depicting the god of wealth and wealth, this theme is mostly used in folk art forms such as New Year paintings and stone carvings. The Hu people on the screen of "Double Door Judgment" have high noses and deep eyes, short cheeks, wrinkles on their faces, and a smile and joy. Holding cash cows and treasures of ethnic minorities, the two men carried swords and weapons behind them, wearing ochre red and dark green boat-shaped hats, wearing short coats, cloaks, and boat-shaped shoes on their feet. The whole New Year painting pays attention to the use of lines, whether it is depicting short lines of hair and hair or long lines outlining the body and clothing of the characters, all of which are handled appropriately. The late Feng Xiangnian painting descendant Tai Yi wrote that all the New Year paintings were included in Gu Yu's paintings, but from the analysis of the shape and form of the two pairs of works, it seems that they are more like the door judgments used during the New Year than those used in Gu Yu, which needs to be further studied and confirmed.
Zhenzhai Shen Sentence -1 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Li Pingzuo
ZhenZhai Shen Sentence -2 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
The "Zhenzhai Divine Judgment" is also known as the "Cinnabar Judgment" or "Cinnabar Divine Judgment" in Fengxiang folk, which is generally printed in cinnabar color, taking the meaning of cinnabar to avoid plague and evil. Since the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the two paintings have been widely circulated in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ning, Sichuan, Henan and other places. The god judge on this new year painting wears a judge's hat, wears a wide robe, holds a sword in one hand, and has a whisker in the other, surrounded by five bats, implying "blessing in front of the eyes" and "hating blessing late", and the robe belt moves with the wind, making the picture full of tension and movement.
Lingbao Divine Judgment -1 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
Lingbao Divine Judgment-2 Shaanxi Fengxiang Tai Lipingzuo
The other pair of "Lingbao Divine Judgment", which is also printed with cinnabar, wears the judge's hat, holds a sword in his hand, his eyes are wide open, and his blood mouth is wide open, making people daunted, and there is a bat flying in the upper corner, and the picture is engraved with two large seals, and the inner book "Zhenzhai Divine Judgment" makes the picture full of composition, and has the meaning of protecting the family and praying for the peace and blessing of the family. According to local accounts of Fengxiang, both paintings are affixed to the back door of the courtyard.
The artistic characteristics and cultural connotations of Gu Yu painting
As a kind of Fengxiang woodblock print, Gu Yu painting has always been based on Guanzhong urban and rural areas, and its creative personnel are all from folk painters or artists, and the consumer group is mainly the majority of the people in the northwest, so it has formed its strong and thick overall style. The creative purpose and concept of Gu Yu painting always follow the principle of pursuing auspicious and festive, auspicious and avoiding harm, which is reflected in the picture, which requires full composition, large color blocks, conspicuous tones, and thick and powerful lines, such as the lines and brushwork of "Town House Divine Judgment", which are very close to the painting style of local temple murals; and the scenes that embody the labor process of folk agricultural work and various festivals are mostly more realistic, such as the characters in "Male Ten Busy" and "Female Ten Busy" shaped like men and women of ordinary people, and each painting is multi-person, the picture is full and rich, the layout, The order is reasonable, which is in line with the psychology of the people seeking perfection.
Text is an important part of Gu Yu painting, and Fengxiang Gu Yu paintings often have this composition method of using easy-to-understand poetic language to point out the main theme of the picture. Almost two-thirds of The Valley Rain paintings are equipped with text, pictures with text, text lining pictures, so that the picture is more full, the text with pictures in the local dialect is catchy to read, very rhyming. On the one hand, these texts play a role in explaining the picture, and on the other hand, they are also important materials for studying the rural social life in the northwest region and the local folk recipes and songs. For example, although the work "Chicken Eats Five Poisons" takes a healthy rooster as the main body of the picture, it is accompanied by inscriptions and spells, which uses straightforward language to point out the intention of the picture, and also makes the picture composition more full. In addition, works such as "Little Man Picture" are supplemented with some text in the blank space to tell the content of the clear picture, and the combination of pictures and texts plays a certain role in education and aesthetic education.
In addition, the Nanxiaoli Village, which produces Gu Yu paintings, is inconvenient to transport, and is rarely affected by the impact and influence of external art trends, and more completely retains the unique folk characteristics of Gu Yu paintings, adapting to the hobbies and aesthetic interests of the vast number of rural people in the northwest region.
Gu Yu painting is different from the public well-known, before the Spring Festival marketed and pasted new year paintings, its sales and use are after the Spring Festival, before the valley rain this period, expanding the original New Year paintings in the Spring Festival use of the scope, so that people in addition to the Spring Festival in other seasons can also appreciate the New Year paintings, beautify the environment. Gu Yu painting is a New Year painting created according to the solar terms, so it is closely related to local folklore and reflects rich folk customs. For example, the Gu Yu painting "Male Ten Busy" and "Female Ten Busy", which express the characteristics of the farming society, the farming tools and textile tools in the picture are important materials for studying the historical evolution of hand tools in the agricultural society; in addition, the 24 solar terms in the Gu Yu painting also remind farmers not to miss agricultural farming and rationally arrange their living and living.
In addition, Gu Yu painting more completely inherits the traditional theme of New Year painting and the unique symbolic and allegorical decoration techniques of folk art, forming a unique artistic language and having the value of studying folk culture. For example, the animal that appears more in Gu Yu's painting is the chicken, from the level of natural objectivity, the chicken itself is a good animal that is good at pecking insects and scorpions, but from the spiritual connotation, this is still derived from people's worship of animal totems. Liang Zongyi's "Chronicle of the Jingchu Years" records: "On the first day of the first month, the painting was painted on the chicken household, and the reed rope was suspended on it, and the peach was inserted into its poop, and the hundred ghosts were afraid of it." It can be seen that the chicken itself has the folk attribute of "a hundred ghosts and fears", and the chicken is homophonous with "Ji", which is in line with the psychology of people posting Gu Yu paintings to drive away evil spirits and avoid disasters and welcome xiang Nafu. In addition, when matching plants, Gu Yu paintings are mostly decorated with auspicious flower patterns such as peonies to express people's expectations for wealth and a better life. Gu Yu painting serves people's production and life, and people rely on Gu Yu painting to seek spiritual pleasure, pin good wishes, and increase confidence in life.
These Gu Yu paintings with quite folk connotations are not only a colorful embellishment in the folk festivals, but also have the aesthetic connotation of folk art, becoming a cultural carrier for the people to increase knowledge, enhance aesthetic education, and inherit faith, a reference system for understanding the thinking mode and cultural psychology of people in Guanzhong, and an important resource for studying Shaanxi folk customs. The unique cultural pattern, rich subject matter content, and folk customs functions reflected in Gu Yu Painting also directly adapt to the needs of the people's spiritual and material life, which is a true portrayal of the festival folklore in Guanzhong, Shaanxi.
The author of this article is affiliated with the China Academy of Arts.