Folk Chinese New Year's Wood Block Paintings
New Year's Wood Block Paintings are a type of picture pasted on walls and doors duringSpring Festival, the most important traditional Chinese festival. In the past, as the Spring Festival approached, every family would clean its rooms and courtyards and paste New Year's Wood Block Paintings on the windows, doors, walls and stoves and in the Buddha niches to add to the New Year atmosphere, and at the same time, to seek good luck in the coming year.
According to ancient records, there were once two brothers named Shen Tu and Yu Lei. They were supervisors ofghostsand monsters, and when they found a monster who wanted to harm people, they would tie him up to feed thetiger. Later the Yellow Emperor asked people to draw portraits of Shen Tu and Yu Lei on windows and doors to ward off the hosts. There is another story about the origin of New Year paintings. It is said that, in theTang Dynasty, the emperor askedWu Daozito drawZhong Kuiand reproduce it to send to his officials to hang on the walls to repel evil. Wood blockprintingwas invented in the Song Dynasty and made the production of New Year's Wood Block Paintings much easier. As this art form developed and became more and more popular among Chinese people, its content and functions also increased. It reached a peak in theQing Dynasty: more subjects were added to express people's New Year wishes and blessings.
The engravings also served to decorate the people's living environment. The content of New Year paintings were enriched later to depict Chinese farmers' life and Chinese folk stories and tales, which made Chinese peasants life more colorful and enhanced their knowledge.
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