As the saying goes, "Yangjiabu came into being first. The kitchen god was born next." It proves the long history of the block printing Yangjiabu New Year pictures.

The production of Yangjiabu New Year pictures began during the Ming Dynasty over 400 years ago. The ancestors of the Yang family in Yangjiabu moved to Weixian County from Sichuan Province during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty.

Yangjiabu New Year pictures are a kind of colourplate woodcut pictures. The first plate finishes black outlines. Then colour plates are used one after another. Deep colours are printed first on small sections of a picture at first. Light colours are printed on large sections of the picture at last. The main colours are red, yellow, purple, green, blue and black. With their sharp eyes and nimble fingers, the handicraftsmen can print four or five colours on the same sheet of paper without the slightest error.

Yangjiabu block printing New Year pictures are characterized by local flavor, artistic exaggeration and sharp contrast of colour. Take artistic exaggeration for example. A chubby child carries a fish in his hands. His head is bigger than his body. The fish is bigger than the child. It looks very nice.

The materials of Yangjiabu New Year pictures from the life of the local people. Their motifs cover flowers, birds, mountains, rivers, characters in traditional operas and fairy tales. The composition of pictures is vigorous, the depiction is exaggerative, the lines are simple and smooth and the colours are gorgeous. The bright red, bright green and bright purple colours give prominence to the rustic flavour. The pictures highlight the bold and unconstrained character of farmers in northern China.

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