Wuqiang Woodblock New Year Pictures
01 · Historical Records
Later, changes in geographical and transport conditions led to its gradual decline; the wars of the Republican period caused the Wuqiang woodblock New Year print industry to shrink rapidly, with only some forty-odd workshops still open for business. In the early 1940s, Wuqiang woodblock New Year print artisans joined art workers of the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region to found the "Central Hebei New Year Print Research Society"; in 1947, on this basis, the "Shijiazhuang Popular Art Society" was established, and Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints were thereby revived and further innovated. After 1949, forty print workshops in Wuqiang County were merged into the Wuqiang Print Factory. In 1985, the Wuqiang Woodblock New Year Print Museum was established. In 1993, Wuqiang County was designated by the Ministry of Culture as the "Hometown of Chinese Woodblock New Year Prints".
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Wuqiang County is a famous hometown of folk New Year prints; it lies on the central Hebei plain in the southeast of Hebei Province and is administered by Hengshui City. According to existing sources, Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints originated in the late Song and early Yuan period, and reached their height in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints are produced by traditional manual woodblock overprinting. In terms of subject matter, they include traditional figures, landscapes, flowers and birds, as well as contemporary real life and current affairs; the celebration of traditional virtues is especially prominent. Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints come in several dozen forms, including door god prints, kitchen god prints, central-hall hangings, couplets, paper-cuts for windows, lantern designs, small square prints, hanging scroll sets, calendar prints, and kang-surround paintings. They fully express the thoughts and feelings of the common people; amid the joyful atmosphere of bidding farewell to the old year and welcoming the new, they spread into thousands of households — auspicious and festive — and are deeply loved by the broad masses.
Door prints, stove prints, hall scrolls, lantern and square sheets
Wuqiang block prints come in dozens of formats — door sheets, stove pictures, hall scrolls, couplets, window flowers, lantern panes, square sheets, strip screens, calendars and kang surrounds — each pasted to its proper place.
Ma Xiqin's block-carving craft
Ma Xiqin learned block carving in the Wuqiang printworks from 1975 under the carver Sun Huirong, worked alongside the designer Lu Zhiguo and became deputy director of the Wuqiang New Year Print Museum in 1999.
The Central Hebei studio and the Shijiazhuang popular art press
In the early 1940s Wuqiang artists and artists of the Jin-Cha-Ji border region founded the Central Hebei New Year Print Research Society, on which the Shijiazhuang Popular Art Press was built in 1947, reviving and modernising the craft.
The Wuqiang New Year Print Museum
Founded in 1985, the museum collects, orders and studies Wuqiang prints; the county's forty workshops were merged into the Wuqiang printworks after 1949, and in 1993 the Ministry of Culture named Wuqiang a home of Chinese woodblock prints.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints have a strong rustic flavor and local character; their rich content constitutes an "encyclopedia" of Chinese folk social life.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
With social change and the transformation of people's attitudes toward life, Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints now face the grave situation in which the art dies out once the artisans are gone, and rescue and protection work are extremely urgent. Ma Xiqin (record from the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1959, a native of Wuqiang, Hebei. Representative inheritor of Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch; master of folk arts and crafts of Hebei Province, and folk craft artist. In 1975, he learned the techniques of designing and carving printing blocks at the Wuqiang Print Factory, studying under the block-carving technician Sun Huirong, while also working with Mr. Lu Zhiguo, a senior craft artist, in creating Wuqiang woodblock New Year prints. In 1980, he became a block-carving technician; in 1986, he was transferred to the Wuqiang New Year Print Museum; in 1990, he undertook advanced study in the printmaking department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts; in 1996, he graduated from the fine arts program of Hebei Normal University; and in 1999, he became deputy director of the Wuqiang New Year Print Museum. To date, he has been engaged in woodblock New Year print carving, printing, creation, and research for more than thirty years; his works have participated in exhibitions at home and abroad on many occasions and have been well received. He has four apprentices in total.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Ma Xiqin 01-0052
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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