Introduction of Yangliuqing New Year Pictures?

Yangliuqing New Year Picture is a famous folk woodblock New Year Picture in China. It inherited the tradition of painting in Song and Yuan Dynasties, absorbed woodcut prints, arts and crafts, opera stage and other forms in Ming Dynasty, combined woodcut overprint with hand painting, and created a unique style with lively, auspicious and touching themes.

According to legend, Yangliuqing New Year pictures were created by an artist who could carve at the end of Yuan Dynasty. At first, some door gods and moon palace pictures were carved and sold. Later, with the expansion of creative themes and sales scope, they began to specialize in New Year pictures. Dai Lian, Dai Meili and Qi Jianlong were the first to open a shop to manage Yangliuqing New Year pictures, and later there were names such as Huilong and Meili. With the expansion of influence, painting shops have developed rapidly. According to historical records, during the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty, Yangliuqing New Year pictures shop was already "connected with each other, with attractive paintings and colorful far away". The period from the middle of Qing Dynasty to Guangxu period was the most prosperous period for Yangliuqing New Year pictures. Yangliuqing New Year Picture Shop has expanded to the fried restaurant in Yangliuqing Town 15 miles away and Dongfeng Hua Ting 100 miles away with convenient transportation. Most people in more than a dozen villages around Yangliuqing are engaged in the processing of New Year pictures. People use ink lines to fill, color and add flowers to paintings, which can be described as "every family will dye and paint well", and then they will be taken back by the painting shop after completion. The output of Yangliuqing New Year pictures is more than several million every year, and businessmen from all over the world come to Yangliuqing to buy New Year pictures. Not only that, Yangliuqing New Year pictures also entered the court and were posted in the Third Palace and Sixth Hospital.

The commonly used and distinctive colors in Yangliuqing New Year pictures are lotus root, lotus red, Buddha green, Sophora yellow and so on. After the completion of Yangliuqing New Year pictures, the colors are bright, the layers are distinct, and the pictures are elegant, harmonious, soft and colorful.

The themes of Yangliuqing New Year pictures are rich and colorful. At first, they were mainly engraved with some door gods, wealth gods and sun and moon gods. Later, with the change of people's needs, the themes were gradually enriched, mainly the themes of "Yu Nian" and "Yu Qing Ji" which were homophonic to show good luck, and the fairy stories that were familiar to everyone. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, works reflecting real life appeared, and the painted ladies were no longer classical beauties, but fashionable clothes at that time, which strengthened the portrayal of characters' personality and life background. Landscape paintings with the theme of scenery at that time appeared in works of Tongzhi and Guangxu, such as Tianjin Map and Beijing Landscape Map. During the period of the Republic of China, Yangliuqing New Year Pictures published works reflecting new culture and new science, such as Bicycle Map and Equality between Men and Women.