Spring Festival custom painting
The New Year picture is a kind of painting in China, which originated from the ancient "door-god painting" and is one of the folk crafts in China. New Year pictures are unique to China, and they are also an art form loved by rural people in China. Most of them are used for posting in the New Year, decorating the environment and wishing the New Year auspicious and festive, hence the name New Year Pictures. Traditional folk New Year pictures are mostly made of wood watermarks. The old version of New Year pictures has different names because of different frame sizes and processing methods.
New Year pictures are decorative pictures used to decorate the living environment of China people during the Spring Festival. New Year pictures began with the ancient "door-god paintings", which were closely related to the two themes of exorcism and blessing in the early days. Traditional folk New Year pictures are mostly made of woodcut watermarks. With the rise of printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to the theme of door gods, but has become rich and colorful. After thousands of years of development, New Year pictures have gradually developed into the decorative art of New Year's Day, which is mainly attached to decorate the environment in the New Year, with the meaning of wishing the New Year and being auspicious and festive.
Historical background:
New Year pictures are an ancient folk art of Han nationality in China, which reflects people's customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. In the long years, with the evolution of festival customs, the unique symbolic decorative art of China folk has been formed. Its origin can be traced back to the ancient concept of nature worship and belief in gods. China's early New Year pictures are closely related to the two themes of exorcism and praying for good luck.
In the process of praying for a bumper harvest, offering sacrifices to ancestors, exorcising demons and other holiday customs, corresponding festival decorative arts have gradually emerged. Hanging New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is also very common in urban and rural areas. Thick black and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of prosperity and festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's simple customs and beliefs and places their hopes on the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods".
With the rise of block printing, the content of New Year pictures is not limited to monotonous themes such as door gods, but has become rich and colorful. Broadly speaking, all paintings created by folk artists and carved and managed by workshops, which are characterized by describing and reflecting folk secular life, can be classified as New Year pictures. The custom of New Year pictures reflects the spiritual comfort and belief of the ancients. Later, with the development of society, people's worship of nature gradually turned into worship and belief in social personality gods.
New Year pictures became "New Year pictures" in the Song Dynasty. At that time, the expansion of "Hanlin Painting Academy" in Song Huizong coincided with the development of traditional painting and block printing, and block printing color overprint New Year pictures became mature and popular. At this time, it has become a fashion for every household to stick to the door god during the Spring Festival, and the door god has also evolved from a town house to a beautiful wish to meet happiness and prosperity. Later, it gradually formed the custom of praying for a happy birthday, good luck, and making a fortune. At this time, the New Year pictures completed the evolution of blessing the New Year.
Mr. Meng Lao's "Tokyo Chinese Dream" and careful "Old Stories of Wulin" both recorded the sales of auspicious decorations such as New Year pictures during the Spring Festival in Bianliang. At that time, the posting of New Year pictures had been popularized among urban residents, from which it can be seen that New Year pictures were quite popular.