Gaomipuhui New Year Pictures
01 · Historical Records
Puhui New Year prints are said to have taken shape during the Chenghua reign of the Ming dynasty. At first, some folk painters copied temple murals for sale; because such copying required large numbers of master drafts, the "puhui" (ash-rubbing) rubbing technique was developed on the basis of the traditional "pufen" (powder-rubbing) technique used for folk mural drafts.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Puhui New Year prints of Jiangzhuang, Gaomi City, Shandong Province, are also called "folk freehand painting." In making them, the artist first lays in a draft with a charcoal stick made by burning willow twigs, then outlines it with a brush, and then takes rubbings with white paper; a single draft can yield many rubbed-off copies, hence the name "puhui" (ash-rubbing). After the ash-rubbing, the draft must still be painted by hand, and it can become a finished picture only after passing through multiple process steps. The greatest difference between "pufen" and "puhui" lies not in the use of materials but in the fact that "pufen" employs ready-made powder masters (that is, sample patterns), whereas "puhui" requires first copying the original work. "Pufen" is printed directly, one printing per use; "puhui" involves a single act of imitation followed by multiple printings. Because of this copying stage, Puhui New Year prints have proven highly adept, in the course of their development, at absorbing all manner of pictorial elements and modeling styles so as to suit people's aesthetic tastes. In the early Qing, Puhui New Year prints absorbed artistic elements from literati painting; during the Jiaqing reign they further absorbed and remade the techniques of the two woodblock New Year print traditions of Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Yangjiabu in Wei County, gradually forming a New Year print school with a strong local style. The production characteristics of Puhui New Year prints made it impossible for them to break away from the traditional hand-rubbing and painting techniques, which resulted in long production cycles, elaborate craft, and limited output; as a result they could not compete for the market against the plate-printing technology of modern New Year prints, and by the Guangxu reign the entire industry had begun to decline.
Archival Record of the Working Procedures
After the ash-rubbing, the draft must still be painted by hand, and it can become a finished picture only after passing through multiple process steps.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
During the Xianfeng reign, a large number of New Year print makers emerged in Gaomi, and two main schools appeared: the "Laomohua" (old-smear painting) and the "Honghuo" (red goods).
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Today, the transmission of the Puhui New Year print technique in the Gaomi area has no successors. As a unique variety of New Year print, it reflects social culture and local customs and preserves the traditional skills of Chinese folk painting; there is a need to rescue and excavate it. Lü Zhenli (record from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1953, native of Gaomi, Shandong. In 1976 he engaged in New Year print creation at the county cultural center under the teacher Jiao Yanfeng; in 1983 he began creating Puhui New Year prints and taught several disciples. In creating New Year prints he first composes a mental draft, then draws the line draft with a willow-twig charcoal stick, and then takes rubbed-off copies with drawing paper over the line draft. The Puhui New Year prints he paints carry on traditional subjects and styles, while in color, figure linework, and other respects he borrowed and absorbed the techniques of traditional Chinese painting and boldly innovated. Through decades of painstaking painting practice, drawing on the strengths of many schools, he gradually formed his own distinctive painting style: his pictures are fresh and elegant, free and flowing, dignified and refined. His representative works include "Zhushou Tu" (Offering Longevity), "Bogu Ping" (Screen of Archaic Bronzes), and "Sanxing Tu" (The Three Stars). He is a representative inheritor of Gaomi Puhui New Year prints, included in the first national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Lvzhenli 01-0054
- Wang Shuhua
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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