The colors of Taohuawu New Year's paintings are bright and bright, the shape is slightly exaggerated, the lines are simple and lively, and they have rich symbolic meanings. The color scheme of the New Year's pictures is mainly auspicious and festive colors such as red and green, which is very decorative.

The Qing Dynasty Taohuawu New Year painting "A Mass of Harmony" is a very representative work. The spread is very wide, and the impact is also very large. I also like this work.

This work looks round as a whole, and when I saw it for the first time, I thought her image was very cute, and her smile was cute. Chinese have always loved reunion and consummation, and the roundness of this work also symbolizes reunion. It expresses people's expectations and good wishes for the Spring Festival.

In the two New Year paintings, "Gusu Wannian Bridge" and "Gusu Changmen Map", the scenery of the ancient city in the south of the Yangtze River is depicted, and the figures, boats, small bridges and city walls are skillfully arranged in the picture, which looks harmonious and orderly, as if in a painting.

Zhong Kui is in the middle of the picture, because after all, Zhong Kui is the god in charge of the book of life and death in hell, so for religious worship, there is nothing wrong with such a layout.

The Taohuawu New Year paintings of the Qing Dynasty were not only influenced by the Wudi culture of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River, but also absorbed a lot of traditional cultural elements, and also learned a lot of folk art creation skills. At the same time, it also absorbed Western printmaking technology to achieve a combination of Chinese and Western culture, forming a characteristic style.

For example, "Ten Views of West Lake", "Suzhou Changmen", "Suzhou New Wannian Bridge", "Suzhou Wannian Bridge" and so on are all borrowed and integrated into copper engraving techniques.

They are much larger in size than the Taohuawu New Year paintings in the past, with a length of 90 to 105 cm in length and a width of 50 to 55 cm in the horizontal direction.

Taohuawu New Year Painting is a folk woodblock New Year painting in the south of the Yangtze River, which was named after the production of Taohuawu in Suzhou City.

It is known as China's five major folk woodblock New Year paintings together with the woodblock prints of Zhuxian Town in Henan, Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Yangjiabu in Weifang, Shandong and Jinzhu in Sichuan.

Taohuawu New Year paintings originated from the engraving and printing process of the Song Dynasty, evolved from the embroidered image map, and developed into a folk art school in the Ming Dynasty.

The printing of Taohuawu New Year's painting is both coloring and color overlay, the composition is symmetrical, plump, the color is gorgeous, often with purple red as the main tone to express the joyful atmosphere, basically all with color production, carving, color and modeling have a fine and elegant folk art style in the Jiangnan region, mainly showing auspicious and festive, folk life, drama stories, flowers, birds, vegetables and fruits and exorcism and other traditional Chinese folk aesthetic content.

Suzhou Taohuawu New Year Painting, Taohuawu is located in the north of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, Taohuawu New Year Painting originated from the engraving and printing process of the Song Dynasty, evolved from the embroidery image, and developed into a folk art school in the Ming Dynasty, and the Yongzheng and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty were at their peak.

Taohuawu New Year Painting is a folk woodblock New Year painting in the south of the Yangtze River, which has been concentrated in the production of Taohuawu in Suzhou City and has been named "Taohuawu New Year Painting" for a long time.

Taohuawu New Year paintings and woodblock New Year paintings of Zhuxian Town in Henan, Yang Liuqing in Tianjin, Yangjiabu in Weifang in Shandong, and Jinzhu in Sichuan are known as China's five major folk woodblock New Year paintings.

Taohuawu New Year paintings originated from the engraving and printing process of the Song Dynasty, evolved from the embroidered image map, and developed into a folk art school in the Ming Dynasty.

The printing of Taohuawu New Year's painting is both coloring and color overlay, the composition is symmetrical, plump, the color is gorgeous, often with purple red as the main tone to express the joyful atmosphere, basically all with color production, carving, color and modeling have a fine and elegant folk art style in the Jiangnan region, mainly showing auspicious and festive, folk life, drama stories, flowers, birds, vegetables and fruits and exorcism and other traditional Chinese folk aesthetic content.

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the fame of Suzhou Taohuawu New Year paintings spread all over the north and south of the river, and there has always been such a saying "South Peach and North Willow", that is, the Taohuawu New Year paintings of Suzhou in the south and the New Year paintings of Yangliu Village in Tianjin in the north.

Since ancient times, these two major New Year paintings have been the two most outstanding and prosperous schools of New Year paintings in China. Taohuawu New Year paintings are not only widely spread in the Jiangnan area, but also spread to Japan, Britain and Germany, especially have a significant impact on Japanese ukiyo-e.

According to Akira Tsukahara, a researcher at the Kobe City Museum, prints depicted and published in Suzhou are collectively called "Suzhou prints" or "Gusu editions" in Japan, and the "Gusu editions" that are currently preserved in Japan are supposed to have been brought to Nagasaki by Chinese ships departing from the port city of Zhapu, which had water transport with Suzhou, during trade with Japan in the first half of the 18th century.

Japanese painters were the first to find new expressions from Suzhou prints imported from China and apply them to ukiyo-e creations. Imitation of Gusu prints is also a very popular thing among Japanese scholars and painters.

After the Opium War, printing technologies such as offset plates, copperplates and lithographs have made great progress, which have a great influence on Taohuawu New Year paintings and are gradually declining. By the time of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in modern times, most of the artists had changed careers, and there were only 3 New Year's paintings left, including Wang Rongxing, Zhu Rongji, and Zhu Ruiji.

In the early Qing Dynasty, Taohuawu New Year paintings have four major characteristics:

First, it is close to the traditional form of painting, and has a high level of artistic achievement. At that time, the Taohuawu New Year paintings were very close to traditional paintings, with an elegant style, and many pictures had poems and inscriptions. Such as "Qinqi Calligraphy and Painting", "Bird Tune", "Fruit Eater", "Three Babies", "Five Sons Dengke", "The Legend of the White Snake".

Second, after the Yongzheng Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, Suzhou's economy was further developed, rich in the world, and the literary style was prosperous, so the Suzhou citizen class naturally asked to reflect their life and aesthetic taste in practical art such as New Year paintings.

The aesthetic taste of the public tends to be more "elegant and vulgar appreciation", and the themes of urban scenery are the majority, such as "Gusu Changmen Map", "Three Hundred and Sixty Lines", "Shantang Puji Bridge" and so on, all of which are works that vividly display the life of the market.

Third, local art is influenced by Western art and boldly borrows from Western art. For example, "Suzhou Wannian Bridge", "Tao Zhu Gets Rich", "Ten Views of West Lake", "Shantang Puji Bridge", "Three Hundred and Sixty Lines", "Hundred Sons", "Three Beauties", "Two Compartments" and other works, you can see the imitation of Western copper engraving engraving style, "Suzhou Wannian Bridge" also inscribed on the picture "imitation of Atlantic brushwork".

Fourth, during this period, Taohuawu woodblock New Year paintings appeared in many grand masterpieces. They are all three to four feet, or even the whole paper is finely printed. Such as "Suzhou Wannian Bridge", "Shantang Puji Bridge Mid-Autumn Festival Night Moon Map", "West Lake Scenic Map", "West Lake Palace Map", etc., the width is as high as about one meter, and the width is more than half a meter.

In the early Republic of China, due to the rise of advanced printing, Taohuawu New Year paintings have lost the market in the city and are basically oriented to farmers, which is different from the previous "elegant" style and "foreign" style, and is a "vulgar" peasant art. He also created some works depicting the life of the foreign market to attract the attention of the peasants.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Taohuawu New Year paintings have received due attention, and artists and artists have devoted themselves to the creation of Taohuawu woodblock New Year paintings with full enthusiasm and responsibility. With the change of the times and the change of people's lifestyle, New Year's pictures are no longer just the function of praying, celebrating and decorating in the past, but are listed as works of art for collection.

Both form and function have been injected with fresh interpretations under the re-examination of modern aesthetics, and the vitality of Taohuawu New Year paintings and the unique charm of traditional folk art have also been extended here.

Nowadays in Suzhou, in addition to some arts and crafts artists in the inheritance of this ancient skills, in addition to holding classes to promote this culture, there is a cultural and creative store with the theme of Taohuawu New Year paintings in the Eslite Bookstore in the park, which is a new form of promoting intangible cultural heritage.

The Spring Festival is one of the most important traditional festivals in China, and it was also called the New Year Pass in ancient times. Whenever the Spring Festival comes, from the palace nobles to the common people, they must celebrate grandly. Among the many ways of folk celebration, in addition to setting off firecrackers and lighting fireworks, there is also an important custom, that is, to put up New Year's pictures to pray for a good harvest and a happy life in the new year.

As the Spring Festival approaches, in some shops and homes in Suzhou, you may be able to see a traditional New Year painting called "A Ball of Harmony", which is said to have been painted by Zhu Jianshen, the first year of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty (1465).

Because it symbolizes auspiciousness and harmony, many Suzhou people have posted this painting in their homes. In the picture, the silver ingot bun on the head of the god of joy means wealth, the osmanthus treasure cover on the shoulder means auspiciousness, the neck wears the silver lock of the ingots means longevity, the red jacket of the eight immortals means strength, and the goose yellow trousers imply nobility. Xishen bent eyebrows and smiling eyes full of happy lines, mouth like gold ingots, nose like silver hanging gall, body in a group, fruitful and complete, showing the appearance of great wealth and nobility, he holds the scroll on the book "a ball of harmony" four words.

This picture is very interesting to look at, and the whole picture looks like an old man sitting in a ball. Its content is closely related to the folk customs of Suzhou people's speech, "gold (respect) is adjacent, silver (welcome) relatives" and "harmony generates wealth".

New Year paintings are an ancient and unique form of folk art that was formed with the formation of Chinese New Year customs, mainly posted on the doors and living rooms of residences during the Lunar New Year; However, this does not mean that New Year's paintings are simply limited to New Year's items, it also includes all aspects of folk life, such as weddings and funerals, auspicious customs such as fortune and longevity, and playful and amusement products.

The earliest form of Chinese New Year painting is the "door god". The real painting of the door god originates from the folk custom of heroes guarding the portal to drive away evil. In the documents of the Han Dynasty, there are already records of door god paintings.

Cai Yong said in "Dictatorship": "At the age of December, I often use the night of the first wax to drive it away, but to paint, base and hang the reed rope at the door to ward off the evil." "Tu" is "Shentu", and "Lei" is "Yu Lei". Legend has it that Shen Tu and Yu Lei are two brothers who can catch ghosts. This myth may be the reason for the creation of the door god painting.

It can be seen from this that the hand-painted door gods in ancient China are the original form of New Year paintings. With the advancement of papermaking technology, by the Tang and Song dynasties, door god paintings had become quite common.

Due to the popularization of engraving and printing technology, in the Ming Dynasty, New Year paintings gradually shifted from hand-painted to print-based, and became popular as consumer goods of popular culture.

People have invited religious gods such as the God of Wealth, Fu Lu Shou Samsung, Guan Gong, and the Eight Immortals into their homes, and then new themes such as education and drama have also emerged in bookstores or New Year painting workshops, and have been widely spread.

As Mr. A Ying, a famous scholar in China, said in "A Brief History of the Development of Chinese New Year Paintings": "Since the Ming Dynasty, with the development of woodcut prints, New Year paintings have officially become an independent art form. ”

Under the influence of the aesthetic preferences of the broad masses of the people, the folk craftsmen of the past generations have continued to create, making the art form of New Year painting more and more perfect, and it has become a unique type of painting that "adapts to the customs of celebrating the Spring Festival, enriches the spiritual life of the people, and reflects the beautiful hopes of the masses". It is colorful, exaggerated, and decorative.

In the development of New Year paintings, there have been a variety of different names: in the Song Dynasty, it was called "paper painting"; In the Yuan Dynasty, it was called "cooling map"; In the Ming Dynasty, it was called "painting post"; At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there were names such as "Wei Painting", "Flower Paper" and "Painting Zhang".

During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, there was the word "New Year painting"; By the Republican period, the term was widely used.

With the development of history and the different folk customs in different regions, the development of New Year paintings in various places has formed its own unique artistic characteristics. Among them, Sichuan Mianzhu New Year Painting, Tianjin Yangliu Youth Painting, Shandong Weifang New Year Painting, and Suzhou Taohuawu New Year Painting are known as the "Four Great Chinese New Year Paintings".

Taohuawu in Suzhou used to be the gathering place of the production of folk New Year paintings in the south of the Yangtze River, which developed the earliest and lasted for a long time. Tang Yin, one of the four great talents of Suzhou at the end of the Ming Dynasty, had a poem that sang about Taohuawu: "Taohuawu in Taohuawu, Taohua Fairy in Taohuawu, Peach Blossom Fairy in Taohuawu, Peach Blossom Fairy people plant peach trees, and break flower branches for wine money." ”

This poem made Taohuawu famous, so people used to call Suzhou New Year paintings "Taohuawu New Year Paintings". Since Suzhou is also known as "Gusu", Suzhou woodblock New Year paintings are also called "Gusu version" or "Suzhou version".

It is evolved from the embroidered image of the engraving printing process of the Song Dynasty and has a history of more than 350 years. Taohuawu New Year painting developed into an independent folk art form in the Ming Dynasty, and gradually formed its own style.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there were about forty or fifty painting shops in Suzhou at that time, mainly concentrated in Fengqiao, Shantang Street, Tiger Hill and the area from Taohuawu to Bao'en Temple Tower in Changmen, and the annual output of paintings reached more than one million, which not only met the local needs of Jiangsu, but also sold to all parts of the country, and also exported to Nanyang and other places with merchant ships.

According to the available information, it is inferred that the starting date of Suzhou Taohuawu woodblock New Year paintings should be no later than the Ming Dynasty. The existing fine printing New Year painting of the early Qing Dynasty in China, "Gusu Changmentu" is a fine product in Taohuawu woodblock New Year painting, and the engraving technique has been quite perfect.

As a well-known water town in the south of the Yangtze River at home and abroad, Suzhou's literary style is prosperous, and the profound cultural accumulation and rich Wudi folk customs have given birth to Taohuawu New Year paintings with unique social value and artistic value. Whether it is in terms of subject matter, carving, or color, it is closely integrated with local customs and reflects people's good wishes. 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.