Virtual Exhibition Statement

Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Prints is a famous folk woodblock print in China. It inherits the tradition of Song and Yuan painting, absorbs the forms of Ming Dynasty woodcut prints, arts and crafts, and theatrical stages, and adopts the method of combining woodblock overprinting and hand painting. Yangliuqing New Year woodblock print, also called Nianhua (Spring Festival Picture), is a unique painting type in China. It is used during the Spring Festival. Originated during the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 AD) in the thousand-year-old town named Yangliuqing (literally meaning "Green Poplar and Willow") in the suburbs of Tianjin. The Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Prints are one of the several well-known Chinese folk New Year pictures. Yangliuqing Nianhua enjoys an equivalent reputation to the New Year woodcut prints produced in Taohuawu ("Peach Blossom Dock") of China's Jiangnan region, thus the nickname "willow in the north and peach in the south." The other two famous are Yangjiabu Nianhua and Mianzhu Nianhua.

The Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Pictures are rich in content. As of the end of 2010, Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Pictures preserved as many as 2,000 topics. Such as historical stories, opera characters, beauties, gods of wealth, etc. This exhibition introduces the story and meaning behind each Yangliuqing New Year woodblock print. Such as 連年有餘 Lian Nian You Yu (Having surplus year after year), which is very famous in China, is the cherubic baby holding a lotus flower while clutching a big fish. In Chinese, the word "lotus" sounds similar to "consecutive, repeatedly, or one after another," and fish is a homophone of "surplus," so together, they imply a wish for "prosperity year after year (連年有餘)." There are many interesting stories and meanings behind the Yangliuqing Nianhua, like this one in the "Yangliuqing-meaning" parts.  Here, people will find stoires about Door godsthe , god of wealth, Liu Hai, etc. In the "Famous themes" part of the visual exhibition, we introduced two other famous Nianhua: "Xin Chun Da Xi" and "Fu Shan Ji Qing". If people want to know their stories, go to check the "Famous themes" part.

Do you want to know how to make a Yangliuqing New Year painting? Check the "How to make?" section. Making a Yangliuqing New Year painting generally requires at least 20 detailed steps, including sketching, engraving, printing, and hand painting to mounting. Each picture is an independent creation. This exhibition takes you to look at how to make the Yangliuqing Nianhua and provides a video about making the Yangliuqing New Year woodblock prints. To make a Yangliuqing New Year Picture will need many tools. There are many different types of brushes for sketching and coloring. The inks which are used in the Yangliuqing New Year Picture are traditional mineral pigments. A tool is also used for Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Prints called Pinch. A pinch is a special tool for pressing the printing paper so that the color is evenly printed to the paper's surface.

The origin and the development of Yangliuqing New Year Pictures are also mentioned in this exhibition. People can know the stores between canals and Yangliuqing and understand different topics or themes at Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Prints at different times. Yangliuqingqing paintings describe people's lives, and the content of some Yangliuqingqing New Year pictures will be different in different periods. Check the "Development" part, and people will get the basic ideas of different in different times of Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Prints. Three innovative Yangliuqing New Year pictures talk about Winter Olympics themes in the "Development" part. The very popular mascots BingDunDun and XueRongRong of this year's Winter Olympics appears in Yangliuqingqing New Year Woodblock Pictures. Check the "A hundred Flowers Welcome Spring; Red Blessing Celebrate winter Olympics."(百花迎春来,红福庆冬奥); there are different postures of Bingdundun rides on the Olympic five rings to wander over the tremendous dragon-like winding Great Wall.

In the "Stamps" parts, there are four different types of stamps issued by China Post. Those four stamps use the various topics of Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Prints: Five children compete for lotus, Steal fairy grass, Yu Tang Fu Gui, Zhong Kui. The first three pictures show the works of the Qing Dynasty, and the last one talk about a mythical and legendary god.

This exhibition also mentions three other famous types of New Year Pictures: Taohuawu, Yangjiabu, and Mianzhu. They are different from the Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock Pictures. Yangliuqing uses creative and unique composition, fresh and smooth lines, vivid form, and strong and wealthy essence. Taohuawu has distinctive characteristics: the figure's head is large and wide, with a base combination of red, yellow, blue, green, purple, light inks, and other colors. Yangjiabu takes rough and straightforward styles, uses bright colors, and has strong contrast. Mianzhu works with bold but concise types, vigorous figures, and fluid drawings.

Activities in this exhibition
1. Hands-on Workshop：
Experience the process of making Yangliuqing New Year Woodblock  picture.

2. Lecture:
The development history of Yangliuqingqing painting and watch the video: "New Year's Paintings"（过年的画). "New Year's Paintings" is a story about the past and present of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects, "Yangliuqing Woodblock New Year Pictures." From the perspective of anthropology, the film takes Yangliuqing woodcut New Year pictures as a sample for observing the society and tells the stories of people who have been associated with Yangliuqingqing pictures and influenced the development of New Year pictures throughout the ages.