Yangliuqing Woodblock New Year Pictures
01 · Historical Records
Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints originated in the thousand-year-old town of Yangliuqing. During the Yongle reign of the Ming dynasty, the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the rise of grain transport (caoyun) at Tianjin made Yangliuqing an important distribution center for north-south commodity trade, and its economy grew increasingly prosperous.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Among the many folk arts of Tianjin, the most representative is the Yangliuqing woodblock New Year print. Woodblock New Year print artisans from surrounding areas successively moved to Yangliuqing Town to develop their trade. The birchleaf pear (Pyrus betulaefolia) wood abundantly produced outside Yangliuqing Town is highly suitable for carving printing blocks. With this usable craft material at hand, Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints soon arose and grew increasingly prosperous, until the whole town and neighboring villages presented the splendid scene in which "every household can apply color, and every family is skilled in painting". For historical reasons, Yangliuqing New Year prints once declined; during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression the entire trade shut down, suffering its heaviest losses. Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints cover a wide range of subjects with rich content, full and balanced compositions, auspicious meanings, and an appeal that suits both refined and popular tastes. They combine block carving with hand painting: the carving is exquisite, the painting fine and delicate, the figures vivid, and the colors elegant, making them one of China's most famous varieties of New Year print. Yangliuqing New Year prints are representative of Chinese New Year print art and occupy an important place in the history of Chinese folk culture and Tianjin culture.
Surplus Year After Year and Five Sons Seizing the Lotus
The two best-known Yangliuqing baby paintings, taking the carp-carrying child and five boys seizing a lotus as images of abundance and many sons; Huo Qingshun's versions entered the National Museum of China in 2003.
The five skills: drafting, carving, printing, painting and mounting
Yangliuqing prints are half printed and half painted: blocks lay the ink line and colour areas, then faces and drapery are painted by hand and the sheet mounted; Huo Qingyou is one of the few who commands all five skills.
Carving blocks of Du pear wood
The Du pear wood grown around the town carves cleanly and resists splitting, which drew woodblock artists from neighbouring districts into Yangliuqing and set the trade on its rise.
Yucheng Studio
The old Yangliuqing studio revived by the Huo family in 1993; Huo Qingyou rebuilt workshop, carving room and painting room at home and turned it into Tianjin's first family-run print gallery.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints have their center of production in Yangliuqing Town, Xiqing District, Tianjin. Numerous print workshops are also distributed across the southern countryside south of the town, forming a distribution pattern in which the in-town workshops and the southern rural print trade support one another.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
After 1949, through repeated rescue, collection, excavation, and organization by the people's government, Yangliuqing New Year prints gained a new life. Excavating, rescuing, and protecting Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints is of great significance for the study of the folk culture of the Tianjin region, of northern New Year prints, and even of the development of Chinese art. Huo Qingshun (record from the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1952, a native of Tianjin. From 1956 he studied painted coloring with his father's generation and his elder sister, gradually acquiring a deeper command of block-carving and mounting techniques. Huo Qingshun has always insisted on using the traditional techniques of woodblock overprinting and hand coloring to produce Yangliuqing New Year prints. He continually excavates and organizes Yangliuqing woodblock New Year print resources; he is especially skilled in hand coloring and in handling contrasts of strength between complexity and simplicity, large and small scale, and hue and tonal depth. He has accumulated a great store of New Year print painting skills; the prints he produces feature refined and beautiful carving, meticulous technique, bright colors, and vivid images. His works have been well received by people from all walks of life at home and abroad. In 2003, he took part in the "Chinese People Celebrate the New Year" event held by the National Museum of China, and his works "Five Boys Contending for the Lotus" and "Abundance Year after Year" were collected by the National Museum of China. He once traveled to Switzerland with the "Cradle of Knowledge" exhibition delegation of the China Science and Technology Museum to give live demonstrations of Yangliuqing New Year print making. Representative inheritor of Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch. Huo Qingyou (record from the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1952, a native of Tianjin. Beginning in the 1980s, Huo Qingyou worked with his father to excavate and organize Yangliuqing New Year prints, finding more than a hundred valuable block designs and old prints, and filling the gap in Buddhist-themed works among Yangliuqing New Year prints. In 1993, the whole Huo family revived the "Yuchenghao" print shop. He is one of the few New Year print artisans in the Yangliuqing trade who combines the skills of drafting, carving, printing, painting, and mounting in one person; he is especially adept at producing design drafts and carving blocks. The blocks he carves have smooth, delicate, clear, and steady lines, preserving very well the block-carving techniques of Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints. In recent years, in order to publicize and promote Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints, he expanded his residence of more than 200 square meters into a family-workshop-style exhibition hall for New Year prints — the first of its kind in Tianjin. Representative works include "Five Boys Contending for the Lotus" and "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove". Representative inheritor of Yangliuqing woodblock New Year prints, an intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Huo Qingshun 01-0048
- Huo Qingyou 01-0049
- Feng Qingju 01-0050
- Wang Wenda 01-0051
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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