Zhangzhou Woodblock New Year Pictures
01 · Historical Records
In the Song dynasty, the book-printing industry of Fujian began to flourish, rapidly spurring the development of folk woodblock printing techniques. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhangzhou woodblock New Year prints began to gain popularity, and the rise of Zhangzhou's Yuegang (Moon Harbor) port brought favorable conditions for their export. In the early twentieth century, a large number of New Year print shops clustered along Lianzi Street, Hong Kong Road, and Taiwan Road in Zhangzhou; as late as the 1950s, eight or nine still remained. In the late Qing, the Yan family workshop, in the course of absorbing smaller workshops, amassed a large number of old blocks from earlier generations and new blocks of its own era, so that its range of editions was fairly complete. In 1957, Yan Jingming, a descendant of the Yan family, donated the workshop and all its shop assets to the government, and changed profession to practice medicine.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The abundance of folk customs and activities was the basis for the survival and development of the Zhangzhou woodblock New Year print industry. The main subjects of Zhangzhou folk woodblock New Year prints include warding off evil and disasters, praying for good fortune, historical drama and opera stories, and decorative patterns. Door god prints predominate among Zhangzhou New Year prints, and these are further divided into the "coarse deity" (cushen) and "young deity" (youshen) types, as well as the civil deity and martial deity types. Coarse deity prints are door god prints overprinted on bright red or vermilion paper. Young deity prints are printed directly on plain, natural-color paper, with a pale red mixed specially for the purpose overprinted as the background behind the figures. Civil deity prints are those in which the figures on the picture neither ride horses nor carry flags; martial deity prints are the opposite — the figures generally ride horses or carry flags. Zhangzhou woodblock New Year prints are first carved into flat wooden blocks according to the design (color blocks and an ink-line block), and then overprinted onto paper by the duanban (short-block) method. The carved blocks are of two kinds, relief (yang) blocks and intaglio (yin) blocks; the block used to print the pale red background color of the "young deity" figures is a yin block, and this way of carving and using the yin block is unique in all China. The edges of all lines and color areas on the carved blocks slope outward, which makes it easy to regulate the moisture during printing. Printing is done by successive overprinting from the blocks, color blocks first and the black line block last, giving a very clear and bright effect on the picture. Pear wood is the usual choice of block material, though acacia wood, hongke wood, and pomegranate wood are also used; all paper is West Fujian paper, such as Fushu paper from Longyan, Yukou paper from Changting, Shanghang, and Gutian, and Xipi (tin-foil) paper from Qingliu. Zhangzhou woodblock New Year print workshops are divided into "red rooms" (hongfang) and "black rooms" (heifang): "black rooms" refers to workshops that print texts and books, while "red rooms" refers to workshops that print New Year prints. Workshop owners generally also served as designer and block carver, or one of the two, and hired laborers for miscellaneous tasks. As social transformation deepened, traditional consciousness gradually faded and folk customs and activities changed accordingly. Zhangzhou woodblock New Year prints, which depended on local customs, gained in ornamental appeal while their practical function of seeking good fortune and warding off evil weakened, leading to a slump in the New Year print market. As the former folk New Year print market shrank, the number of people engaged in Zhangzhou New Year print production dropped sharply. The craft of making New Year prints inevitably faces extinction.
Coarse, young, civil and martial deities
The漳州 door-print categories: coarse gods printed on crimson or vermilion paper, young gods on natural paper with a hand-mixed pale red ground, civil gods without horse or banner, and martial gods with them.
The intaglio block for the young gods' ground
漳州 blocks are cut either in relief or intaglio; the intaglio block that prints the red background of the young gods is unique to Zhangzhou, and every line and colour area is bevelled outward to regulate moisture in printing.
Red rooms and black rooms
Zhangzhou workshops divided into red rooms, which printed New Year pictures, and black rooms, which printed books; the owner usually also drew the design or cut the blocks, hiring labour only for odd jobs.
Pear-wood blocks and western Fujian paper
Blocks are mostly pear wood, with acacia, red tanoak and pomegranate also used, while all paper comes from western Fujian — Longyan book paper, Yükou paper of Changting, Shanghang and Gutian, and tin-skin paper of Qingliu.
The Yan workshop and Yan Jingming's donation
The Yan workshop of the late Qing absorbed small rivals and amassed old and new blocks of many editions; in 1957 the descendant Yan Jingming gave workshop and stock to the government and turned to medicine.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Zhangzhou woodblock New Year prints are mainly passed down in Xiangcheng District of Zhangzhou and in the southern Fujian and Lingnan regions, and are exported as far as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
If concrete measures are not formulated as soon as possible to carry out rescue and protection, Zhangzhou Yan Shiguo (record from the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in September 1966, a native of Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province. He produces New Year prints mostly by color printing on red paper — bright and festive, with rich, mottled colors like brocade or embroidery, in a style all his own. His representative works include various door god prints on themes such as "Shentu and Yulei" and "Promotion to High Office", as well as New Year prints of folk customs and seasonal festivals; some of his works are collected by the National Art Museum of China. His family holds more than three hundred New Year print blocks from the Ming, Qing, and Republican periods, as well as more than two thousand text blocks, but all face the problem of improper storage, and some are already on the verge of damage. Representative inheritor of Zhangzhou woodblock New Year prints, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fifth batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yan Shiguo 05-2574
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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