New Year Picture of Yang Liu Qing

In China, the folk arts connecting with festivals or some traditions are very influential. And the New-Year Picture or painting is one of these folk arts and very famous in China. The representatives of these folk pictures are Tianjin Yangliuqing in Northern China and Suzhou Taohuawu in Southeast China. And Yangliuqing to some extent is widely famous in northern China for its traditional skills or techniques used in painting as well as the famous stories shown in painting.

Yangliuqing Town is in the western suburb of Tianjin. From the Chongzhen period (1628-1644) of the Ming Dynasty, peasants and folk artists of New Year pictures began to collect sketches and carved wooden blocks and created unique craftsmanship of New Year pictures.

Being one of the most excellent block new year pictures in the folk art of China, Yang Liu Qing New-year Pictures originated from the Town of Yang Liu Qing in the western suburb of Tianjin in the early 17th century. So, it was named after the town. The New Year pictures are made mainly by combined techniques of wood-block printing and hand painting. Being ingenious and unique in composition, fresh and smooth in line, vivid and life-like in form, and strong and rich in the flavor of life, Yang Liu Qing New Year Pictures generally take ancient beauties, lovely children, folk customs or stories from classical operas, myths and legends as their source materials.

The Yangliuqing New Year pictures are characterized by the combination of block print and coloured hand drawing. The painting tradition passed down from the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties and the integration of techniques of Gongbi figure paintings (gongbi is a traditeonal Chinese realistic painting characterized by fine brushwork and close attention to details) into the folk New Year pictures enabled an organic combination of wood engraving with hand painting.