Yangliuqing New Year Picture : from yesterday to today

As a main kind of folk woodcut New Year pictures,Yangliuqing New Year pictures are named after its production place - Yangliuqing Town of Tianjin. With a history of 600 years Yangliuqing New Year pictures inherited the painting traditions of the Song (AD 960-1279) and Yuan (AD 1271-1368) dynasties and absorbed the essences of woodcut paintings, craftworks and stage arts of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644).

Yangliuqing New Year picture enjoyed its heyday in the Ming and early Qing dynasties. From the very beginning, Yangliuqing New Year picture art catered to the tastes of different social classes from ordinary farmers, city dwellers, to emperors of the Ming and Qing (AD 1644-1911) courts.

The richness of sub-genres and varieties of the folk art itself attracted many ancient intellectuals to participate in the creation of New Year pictures by contributing sketches of figures, landscapes, birds and flowers that were more refined than most of those produced by craftsmen of Yangliuqing pictures who only received training in the folk art’s skills.

In the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, of the 30 villages in Yangliuqing Township, there were over 300 art studios with at least 3,000 folk artisans engaged in New Year picture production, local records show. And on the three main streets of the township proper, there were hundreds of art shops, selling New Year pictures and other folk art works in at least 2,000 varieties, catering to the demands of consumers in North and Northeast China provinces.

Over the years the traditional folk art was on the verge of extinction. The paintings were rejected as a form of superstition after the founding of New China in 1949, but in the countryside villagers still bought them to decorate their homes.

In the 1960s, it finally recovered its splendor and improved the craft with the support from the new government.

For instance, in the early 1980s, farmers in Yangliuqing Township started to open small studios.

The old site of Yuchenghao, handicraft studio of Yangliuqing New Year picture

The old site of Yuchenghao, handicraft studio of Yangliuqing New Year pictures

Now Yangliuqing New Year pictures are a gem and loved by people both at home and abroad. They are exported to Italy, France, Britain, Belgium, Japan, Canada, the US, Singapore and Mexico.