Huo Shuqing’s family has been making traditional New Year’s woodblock prints for seven generations.
The strategy of creating these images includes drawing, carving woodcut types, rubbing ink from type, coloring and eventually mounting.
Mr. Huo focuses on adding color to prints and has been doing so for 25 years. He says dyeing is essentially the most difficult a part of the method.
“Once all the preliminary work is done, once the wood is carved, it is attached and does not need to be touched. But coloring is different because there is no set format, there is no sample, so it is completely based on your experience and that is why it is very difficult,” Huo said.
He lives in Yangliuqing, a city within the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, where in precedent days imperial families purchased New Year’s paintings.
The tradition of painting New Year’s pictures in Yangliuqing dates back over 600 years to the Yuan Dynasty.
Currently, there are two major cities in China specializing in New Year woodcut paintings – Yangliuqing and Taohuawu, situated within the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou.
Mr. Huo said: “Taohuawu New Year paintings are based on woodcuts, which suggests that artisans apply all the colours to the wood carving before using it to print on the areas that need color. But for Yangliuqing New Year paintings… most of us only woodcut three colours. The rest are hand-painted.”
The paintings are known for his or her vibrant colours, in addition to auspicious and festive themes.
And customers like Fan Dongyan and her husband were willing to travel hours to Yangliuqing to purchase these paintings.
Ms Fan, from Shandong Province, bought two for $43 ($61 Singaporean).
She said: “It is becoming increasingly essential to preserve China’s cultural heritage. Therefore, although many Chinese travel abroad, I believe they must also notice the disappearance of parts of our folk culture.”
In 2006, the State Council included Yangliuqing New Year’s paintings on the list of intangible cultural heritage, which gave artists the impetus to undertake it.
Hao Guifen, director of the Tianjin Folk Artists Association, told Channel NewsAsia: “Before it was included in the intangible cultural heritage list, the Yangliuqing New Year paintings were in retreat, which means there were not many people to deal with it. But then some former artists started doing it again, and the younger generation also started learning how to do it.”
While this implies more competition for artists, the Chinese may be optimistic that this traditional folk art won’t disappear anytime soon.
Source: Channel News Asia
