In the forties and fifties of the last century, New Year's pictures could still be regarded as a necessity for the life of Gusu people, and they were a necessary object for every family to "make New Year's goods". Every month of the lunar month, the New Year's painting artist will carry the goods to the village and alleys. When the newsboy sells the newspaper, he shouts "outside", while the painter hums the "New Year's Song" and sings the content of the New Year's picture with lyrics to attract customers.

As mentioned above, the old man who pushes the bicycle is named Wang Zude, who is one of the thousands of Taohuawu New Year painters. For him, Taohuawu New Year's paintings are not only the world, but also family feelings.

My father once painted the sketch of "Three Laughing Smoke", and told him the story of Tang Bohu ordering autumn incense; When I woke up from a nightmare, I was terrified, and I thought of the New Year's painting of "Zhong Kui Catching Ghosts" on the door, as if I had gotten a talisman; The New Year's pictures that reflect the wedding and funeral made him understand the traditional etiquette, and the New Year's pictures of folk frolic and amusement cultivated his sentiments and interests - the New Year's pictures are to Wang Zude what the four-panel cartoons are to today's teenagers, which are the most important window to understand the society and leave him with too many childhood memories.

In the fifties of the last century, there were few folk artists engaged in production anymore. 18-year-old Wang Zude was admitted to Suzhou Arts and Crafts College and began to pick up New Year's paintings that even his father no longer makes. To become a professional New Year's painter, one painting is more than 50 years.

Walking into the New Year Painting Society, several wooden tables are lined up, and a young man sits in front of each wooden table. A table, a table lamp, a paintbrush, a fist knife, and an engraving plate constitute the work content of the New Year painter.

Wang Zude's most satisfied disciple Sun Yibo first came into contact with New Year paintings when he was in college. In 1998, Suzhou Vocational and Technical College of Arts and Crafts established a special Taohuawu woodcarving New Year painting society and began to recruit inheritors.

"At that time, I was very shocked to see the New Year paintings, there are such good folk handicrafts in Suzhou, I have never heard of them", so Sun Yibo signed up for the New Year Painting Club with the mentality of giving it a try.

Taohuawu New Year's painting is a kung fu that uses a fist knife as a pen and paints in pear wood. The pear wood is hard and has a fine grain of wood, and if you want to paint on it, you need several brushes. But if you want to practice a few brushes, you have to brush thousands of brushes first.

The classmates who entered the New Year's Painting Club together failed to cross this hurdle in the end. The reason for supporting Sun Yibo to continue doing it is very simple: "In martial arts films, when the master is cornered, he uses a sword to carve out his martial arts secrets on the cliff, which is too handsome. And Taohuawu New Year's painting is also a stunt that is about to be lost, I want to do this line of work, using a fist knife to engrave the "New Year's Painting Sutra" on the pear wood!"

So, at that time, Sun Yibo became the only successor of Taohuawu New Year's paintings, and several masters surrounded him to teach alone, Sun Yibo often had an illusion: "I feel like Guo Jing in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", and Mr. Wang Zude and their group are the Seven Monsters of Jiangnan."

Finally, after three years of cultivation, Sun Yibo learned the "secret book" and restored many lost prints, among which "A Ball of Harmony" (Yongzheng Edition) won the gold medal of the National New Year Painting Exhibition in Weifang, Shandong Province.

The color matching process is a unique process that distinguishes Taohuawu New Year paintings from other New Year paintings. The New Year's picture printed from the engraving is a single black, "just like a beauty without makeup, and filling in the sleeve is like the process of applying makeup to a beauty without makeup", and it is Qiao Lanrong, a post-80s New Year's painting craftsman who shows us the overprinting process.

After graduating from university in 2004, Qiao Lanrong began to engage in the creation of New Year paintings, and is one of the few young craftsmen who volunteered to create Taohuawu New Year paintings.

Taohuawu New Year's paintings rely more on delicate lines, elegant colors and rich meanings, and these resonate with Qiao Lanrong, who grew up in Jiangnan since she was a child. When she entered the New Year's Painting Club in college, her classmates laughed at her for being blinded by Zhong Kui's spell, and she would eventually get lost.

However, after graduating from university in 2004, Qiao Lanrong took making New Year's pictures as her life's work, which surprised her classmates. Some classmates compare painting New Year's pictures to drinking, although New Year's pictures are good, don't be greedy for cups, and don't get drunk for a long time.

"If doing what I like is also 'drunk', then I would like to be drunk for a long time." After graduating, Qiao Lanrong became a new painter. With a salary of 364 yuan a month and a rent of 500 yuan, this is a skinny reality, but as long as she picks up a paintbrush and holds a fist knife in her hand, she begins to "paint walls" and begin to build her own world.

"The production process of Taohuawu New Year's pictures is indeed very cumbersome, but if you see making New Year's pictures as putting on your own makeup, it is very simple, Jiangnan ladies never feel that their appliques are yellow for too long, the reason why this Taohuawu New Year's paintings are exquisite and elegant, just because every painter and carver in history regards it as their own bride, and everyone wants their bride to be more beautiful than others, isn't it?" Qiao Lanrong said as she colored the New Year's paintings, and her focused eyes were like sewing a wedding dress for herself.

Nowadays, even the Suzhou Taohuawu Woodcut New Year Painting Museum, which gathers the strength of the whole country, has not collected a few old versions. Once, Wang Zude took a boat to accompany a Japanese historian to Suzhou, and when the boat arrived at the Wannian Bridge, the historian pointed to the bridge and danced: "Wannian Bridge, I finally saw the Wannian Bridge!"

It turns out that there is a work called "Gusu Wannian Bridge" in Taohuawu New Year paintings, which is stored in museums in Japan today as a national treasure of Japan. He made New Year's paintings all his life, but the most valuable New Year's paintings in Taohuawu were hidden abroad, which greatly stimulated Wang Zude, so he began to copy the old version of Taohuawu's New Year's paintings.

Although the old painting version is not in China, with these new painting plates, future generations have a basis for studying Taohuawu New Year paintings. More importantly, young people are proficient in the skills of Taohuawu New Year paintings in the process of copying, so that Taohuawu New Year paintings can flow without rotting.

By chance, I heard from a friend about the renovation of the old city in the Taohuawu area of Suzhou, so I put on my camera and went to find the elegance in Tang Bohu's "Peach Blossom Nunnery Poems". After arriving at Taohuawu Street in Suzhou, it was already a step late, and the surrounding area of Taohuawu had been demolished into ruins, and even the former residence of Tang Bohu had become a ruin.

The peach blossom nunnery was destroyed, the peach blossom fairy has passed away, and the peach tree is nowhere to be seen. The carved curtain is engraved with two handsome traditional Chinese characters: Pu Yuan. Push open the hidden door, and there are more water pavilions. I was secretly happy in my heart and decided to play this place as a Suzhou garden.

Sitting quietly in the gazebo under the shade of the trees, I saw an old man pushing a bicycle, a pregnant woman with a big belly, and a bouncing child entering side by side. The three of them talked together, and when they saw that I craned my neck to eavesdrop, the old man corrected Wu Nong's soft language to Mandarin: "What do you have to do in the painting club in the coming year?"

"New Year's Painting Society? The legendary Taohuawu New Year Painting Society?" It's like thunder but I haven't had a chance to see it, and it doesn't take much effort to get it today.

In ancient times, Taohuawu Street was a gathering place for talented people in Suzhou, and Taohuawu New Year paintings were expressed through the folk forms that the literati painted were liked: "A Mass of Harmony" and "Flowers Blooming and Wealthy" were conveyed to pray for blessings and welcome auspiciousness; used to drive away evil spirits and avoid evil spirits, "Shen Tu Yu Lei" and "Zhong Kui Hunting Ghosts"; "Foreign Lantern Beauty" and "Suzhou Train to Wusong", which talk about current affairs and customs; tells the story of opera "Three Laughing Smoke" and "Mu Guiying's Great Breaking the Heavenly Gate......

A New Year's painting is a window of society, through which you can see the world of the year.

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Taohuawu New Year paintings developed to their peak: the annual output was as high as one million, which was as famous as Tianjin's "Yang Liuqing", and became the two major folk New Year painting centers in the north and south of China. Taohuawu New Year paintings are not only sold all over the country, but also as far as Nanyang and Japan. And to a certain extent, it contributed to the formation of Japanese ukiyo-e.

In the forties and fifties of the last century, New Year's pictures could still be regarded as a necessity for the life of Gusu people, and they were a necessary object for every family to "make New Year's goods". Every month of the lunar month, the New Year's painting artist will carry the goods to the village and alleys. When the newsboy sells the newspaper, he shouts "outside", while the painter hums the "New Year's Song" and sings the content of the New Year's picture with lyrics to attract customers.

As mentioned above, the old man who pushes the bicycle is named Wang Zude, who is one of the thousands of Taohuawu New Year painters. For him, Taohuawu New Year's paintings are not only the world, but also family feelings.

My father once painted the sketch of "Three Laughing Smoke", and told him the story of Tang Bohu ordering autumn incense; When I woke up from a nightmare, I was terrified, and I thought of the New Year's painting of "Zhong Kui Catching Ghosts" on the door, as if I had gotten a talisman; The New Year's pictures that reflect the wedding and funeral made him understand the traditional etiquette, and the New Year's pictures of folk frolic and amusement cultivated his sentiments and interests - the New Year's pictures are to Wang Zude what the four-panel cartoons are to today's teenagers, which are the most important window to understand the society and leave him with too many childhood memories.

In the fifties of the last century, there were few folk artists engaged in production anymore. 18-year-old Wang Zude was admitted to Suzhou Arts and Crafts College and began to pick up New Year's paintings that even his father no longer makes. To become a professional New Year's painter, one painting is more than 50 years.

Walking into the New Year Painting Society, several wooden tables are lined up, and a young man sits in front of each wooden table. A table, a table lamp, a paintbrush, a fist knife, and an engraving plate constitute the work content of the New Year painter.

Wang Zude's most satisfied disciple Sun Yibo first came into contact with New Year paintings when he was in college. In 1998, Suzhou Vocational and Technical College of Arts and Crafts established a special Taohuawu woodcarving New Year painting society and began to recruit inheritors. "At that time, I was very shocked to see the New Year paintings, there are such good folk handicrafts in Suzhou, I have never heard of them", so Sun Yibo signed up for the New Year Painting Club with the mentality of giving it a try.

Taohuawu New Year's painting is a kung fu that uses a fist knife as a pen and paints in pear wood. The pear wood is hard and has a fine grain of wood, and if you want to paint on it, you need several brushes. But if you want to practice a few brushes, you have to brush thousands of brushes first.

The classmates who entered the New Year's Painting Club together failed to cross this hurdle in the end. The reason for supporting Sun Yibo to continue doing it is very simple: "In martial arts films, when the master is cornered, he uses a sword to carve out his martial arts secrets on the cliff, which is too handsome. And Taohuawu New Year's painting is also a stunt that is about to be lost, I want to do this line of work, using a fist knife to engrave the "New Year's Painting Sutra" on the pear wood!"

So, at that time, Sun Yibo became the only successor of Taohuawu New Year's paintings, and several masters surrounded him to teach alone, Sun Yibo often had an illusion: "I feel like Guo Jing in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", and Mr. Wang Zude and their group are the Seven Monsters of Jiangnan."

Finally, after three years of cultivation, Sun Yibo learned the "secret book" and restored many lost prints, among which "A Ball of Harmony" (Yongzheng Edition) won the gold medal of the National New Year Painting Exhibition in Weifang, Shandong Province.

The color matching process is a unique process that distinguishes Taohuawu New Year paintings from other New Year paintings. The New Year's picture printed from the engraving is a single black, "just like a beauty without makeup, and filling in the sleeve is like the process of applying makeup to a beauty without makeup", and it is Qiao Lanrong, a post-80s New Year's painting craftsman who shows us the overprinting process. After graduating from university in 2004, Qiao Lanrong began to engage in the creation of New Year paintings, and is one of the few young craftsmen who volunteered to create Taohuawu New Year paintings.

Overprinting is the biggest feature of Taohuawu New Year's paintings, and each color must be engraved with a set of color plates

Taohuawu New Year's paintings rely more on delicate lines, elegant colors and rich meanings, and these resonate with Qiao Lanrong, who grew up in Jiangnan since she was a child.

When she entered the New Year's Painting Club in college, her classmates laughed at her for being blinded by Zhong Kui's spell, and she would eventually get lost. However, after graduating from university in 2004, Qiao Lanrong took making New Year's pictures as her life's work, which surprised her classmates. Some classmates compare painting New Year's pictures to drinking, although New Year's pictures are good, don't be greedy for cups, and don't get drunk for a long time.

"If doing what I like is also 'drunk', then I would like to be drunk for a long time." After graduating, Qiao Lanrong became a new painter. With a salary of 364 yuan a month and a rent of 500 yuan, this is a skinny reality, but as long as she picks up a paintbrush and holds a fist knife in her hand, she begins to "paint walls" and begin to build her own world.

"The production process of Taohuawu New Year's pictures is indeed very cumbersome, but if you see making New Year's pictures as putting on your own makeup, it is very simple, Jiangnan ladies never feel that their appliques are yellow for too long, the reason why this Taohuawu New Year's paintings are exquisite and elegant, just because every painter and carver in history regards it as their own bride, and everyone wants their bride to be more beautiful than others, isn't it?" Qiao Lanrong said as she colored the New Year's paintings, and her focused eyes were like sewing a wedding dress for herself.

Nowadays, even the Suzhou Taohuawu Woodcut New Year Painting Museum, which gathers the strength of the whole country, has not collected a few old versions. Once, Wang Zude took a boat to accompany a Japanese historian to Suzhou, and when the boat arrived at the Wannian Bridge, the historian pointed to the bridge and danced: "Wannian Bridge, I finally saw the Wannian Bridge!"

It turns out that there is a work called "Gusu Wannian Bridge" in Taohuawu New Year paintings, which is stored in museums in Japan today as a national treasure of Japan. He made New Year's paintings all his life, but the most valuable New Year's paintings in Taohuawu were hidden abroad, which greatly stimulated Wang Zude, so he began to copy the old version of Taohuawu's New Year's paintings.

Wang Zude went to Japan to take pictures of the old version and restored it accordingly. A large number of works such as "Gusu Changmen Map", "Three Hundred and Sixty Lines", "Magu Offering Birthday", and "A Ball of Harmony" have been copied by the hands of Sun Yibo, Qiao Lanrong, Du Yang and other post-80s generations.

Although the old painting version is not in China, with these new painting plates, future generations have a basis for studying Taohuawu New Year paintings. More importantly, young people are proficient in the skills of Taohuawu New Year paintings in the process of copying, so that Taohuawu New Year paintings can flow without rotting.

In between sketches, Wang Zude continued to give lectures in various colleges and universities in Suzhou, opening up "base areas" among college students, hoping to recruit newcomers like Sun Yibo and Qiao Lanrong; When he put down his fist and knife, Sun Yibo would stay in Puyuan, where there was an interest class for Taohuawu New Year paintings recruited by the society, and every weekend, he would bring more than one or twenty, and as little as two or three apprentices; After the overprint, Qiao Lanrong will bring her New Year's paintings into primary schools and even kindergartens, and show them New Year's paintings such as "Zhong Kui's Town House", "Gusu Changmen", and "Fisherman's Pleasure", hoping to use New Year's paintings or exaggerated or delicate lines; or bright or subtle colors; or magnificent, or gentle scenes, planted the "Gu" of Taohuawu New Year's paintings in their hearts.

A Taohuawu New Year's painting is a window of society, through which you can see the world of the year. Take a look at the latest chapters of "Dream Claw Book House in the Great Era" and read it for free for the first time.