民间年画的审美情趣

On the beauty of Chinese woodcut New Year painting

Qing Mei

New Year woodprint is a form. of folklore visual arts. Its basic aesthetic characteristic is the beauty of emotion and delight. As concluded by Wang chaowen in his research on folklore visual arts[1]: The beauty of emotion and delight in folk lunar new- year painting refers to the emotional satisfaction and pleasure common people have when they enjoy a folklore painting. In the present article, the habit of enjoyment and aesthetic characteristics of folk lunar New Year paintings are discussed under the scope of folklore. By exploring the different types and contents of folk lunar New Year painting, the range and levels of folk emotions can be unveiled. By analyzing the properties and development of New Year wood prints, folk’s aesthetic characteristic can be discovered.

Susanne K. Langer pointed out in her book “Problems of Art”[2]: All arts are forms of perception which are created to express human emotion. The Chinese folk New Year wood prints have been favored by common people inChinafor a long time. The reason is that the paintings precisely expressed the emotion of common people. Based on the development history of Yangjiabu lunar new -year paintings, all their contents are about expressing people’s emotion, similar to new -year woodprints in other regions. Further more, the methods of emotion express of these paintings differ from period to period.

1.Contents and folk’s emotion

1). Content on driving devils and avoiding misfortunes

The devil topic in new- year painting can be traced by to the door god painting, which is the earliest type of new -year painting. The first door god in new-year painting history is knight Cheng Qing. The story can be found in “Han’s book; Tale of Guangchuan King” (Ban Gu, 32-92 A.C.) It said that there was a king called Guangchuan. He was sick for a long period of time. He suspected that there were devils cursing him. Thus he ordered his painter to paint on his palace door an ancient knight carrying a long sword, to drive away the devil. The ancient knight was named Cheng Qing. In east Han dynasty, painting door gods had been a popular culture, and changed from painting directly on the door to posting gods painted on big paper posters. The earliest record of door gods are “Shen Tu” and “Yu Lei” from an ancient book “Shan Hai Jing” (Stories about mountain and ocean”. Till Tang dynasty, the figures in door god paintings have changed from “Shen Tu” and “Yu Lei” to “Qin Qiong” and “Jing De”. Because “Qin Qiong” and “Jing De” were real human beings, it gave people the hope that there are some huge powers in mankind to defeat devils. Therefore, they have been the most popular topic of door gods paintings in the following years. In Tang Dynasty, the purpose of door god was to drive devils. In the Kaiyuan period, the Ming King of Tang assigned a devil to be the door god. This is originated from the famous painter Wu Daozi who painted Zhong Kui. It was said that when the Ming King of Tang was sick, dreamed a big devil who wear hat, blue dress, belt, and official boots, eat other small devils. The devil said his name was Zhong Kui. Because Zhong Kui did not pass the military officer examination, he decided to kill all the devils after his death. After the Ming King woke up, he felt very healthy. Thus, he ordered the famous painter Wu Daozi to paint a painting called “Zhong Kui catching devils”. This painting was paid to the king as a tribute at the end of each year, and distributed to the officials by the king. In the Duanwu festival, the old tradition is to hang a painting of ZhongKui on the door. Sometimes ZhongKui was also hang up during the new years eve. In the painting, ZhongKui has big beard sticking out, and looks like a death evil. It was believed to be able to drive the devils and other evil things. From then, ZhongKui became the figure who can keep the safety of home. Since Tang Dynasty, a pair of gods (Shentu and Yulei), a pair of human beings (Qinqiong and Jingde), and an evil (ZhongKui) have been sharing the position of door god.

The Yangjiabu lunar new year paintings started from door god. All the door god figures in Chinese history were in Yangjiabu door god paintings. The earliest was “Shentu and Yulei”, which was carved by a painter’s shop calledTongshuntang.The board was collected by Yangjiabu lunar new year painting club, but lost during the moving of that club. Based on the recall of old painters, the board was a rebuild before Qianlong period in Qing dynasty. The existing paintings from that board show two pieces which are symmetrical in form. The figures look like powerful and awe-inspiring knights wearing helmet and armors with big hammers in hands. According to the size of their hammers, the local folks call them “big hammer general” and “small hammer general”. Then for “Qingqiong” and “Jingde”, there exists two versions of the boards: one is a larger size figure wearing “order flags” with two hands holding the weapon; the other one is a smaller size figure wearing “Yin and Yang flags” with one hand holding the weapon in front of the chest and one hand holding another weapon protecting the back. It has been found that the larger figure was carved in Qianlong and Jiaqing period in Qing dynasty. The smaller figure was carved more recently. Both are very original in style. This pair of door gods were also called “Bian and Jian door gods” because the ancient weapons they are holding were called Bian and Jian.

By analyzing the content of above mentioned door god paintings, it can be seen that the most important function of these paintings is that they provide people a psychological feeling of safety. During those years, the limitation of knowledge on nature makes people thought that disasters and bad fortunes are unpredictable and irresistible. Mysterious psychological status were developed and exaggerated. The situations which threaten life need to be illustrated in a certain way. One type of the mysterious psychological status is to represent the life threatening situations by devil. The psychological needs to drive “evil” made people to imagine some “gods” and good “devils”. The door god paintings became a form. of expression of these imagination similar to those folk stories. The door god paintings was chosen by folk painters to visualize folk’s imagination and expressed folk’s hope on avoiding misfortunes.

2). Content on good luck and fortunes

The emerging of these types of content showed that increasing needs of folks requires the contents of lunar new- year paintings to be expanded into broader areas. The first one to express good luck was “Civil door gods”, such as “Five son’s door god”, “Three star door god”, etc. in Yangjiabu new- year paintings. “Five son’s door god” has a figure looks like a civil officer, and the five sons hold festival lanterns which represent “bright future”, “children receive government degrees”, peony which represents riches and honors, “being promoted”, and gold toad which represents blessing. According to people’s wish for good fortunes during the Chinese New Year, “three starts door god” combines the three symbols for blessing, good income, and longevity.

Beside “civil door gods”, “the god of wealth” also represents good luck and fortune. In Chinese history, it has been a wide spread consuetude to “receive the god of wealth”. In most cases, the figure being painted was an invented human figure: Zhao Gongming, who was worshiped by Taoism followers. The figures in Yangjiabu new year paintings were not Zhao Gongming. Instead, two real human beings were painted. The first was Bi Gan, such as in painting “Civil god of wealth: Prime minister Bi Gan”. Bi Gan was the uncle of King Zhou in the end of Shang Dynasty. People worshiped him as the god of wealth because he was an honest and fair person who is not greedy. The second was Guan Gong (an important figure in fiction “the Three Kingdoms”). There was no reliable information on why Guan Gong was painted as the god of wealth. One local story with no reliable evidence said it was conferred by King Qian Long in the Qing Dynasty. The other paintings for good luck and fortunes include “Buddha Kwan-Yin”, which was sold mostly to fish men in the east ofShangdongProvince, who hope to be protected by Kwan-Yin when they fish in the ocean. There are also other paintings which directly expressed folk’s desire and wish in daily life, such as “Kylin delivers son”, “Good weather for the crops”, “Auspicious snow”, “Safe in four seasons”, “A bumper harvest”, and “Thrived domestic animals”.

All above new- year paintings express the topic of good luck and fortune by visualization, homophones, moral, and representation. These new -year paintings have good looking figures and nice words. They satisfied folk’s desire for happiness and good luck.

3). Content on entertainment and enjoyment

There are also many new -year paintings for entertainment and enjoyment purpose. The topic ranges from historical figures, traditional opera stories, folktales, to natural sceneries. For example, some popular paintings were “Three visits to the hut”, “Madam white snake”, “Dream of the red chamber”, “The romance of the western chamber”, “Yang female warriors”, “The hall of loyalism”, “The cowherd and the Girl Weaver”, “Temple Xuanmiao in Gusu”, “Lake boat”, rooster, farming cattle, pied magpie resting on plums, flowers, sceneries.

Yangjiabu new- year painting “The romance of the western chamber” was carved originally in the middle era of Qing Dynasty[3]. It told a story about Zhang Gong who went to Luo Yang to take the national exam. He met Cui Yingying when visitingPutuoTempleon his way. The painting from right to left covered four important episodes: first met, overlook the fall during evening, beat the soubrette, and farewell at the roadside pavilion.

The “Happy with three children” was originally carved in Yangjiabu during Qing dynasty[4]. It was an excellent piece of art about children’s play. It illustrated a group of children climbing trees and catching birds in the summer and was very popular in the east ofShandongprovince.

New Year paintings from anotherShandongarea, Gaomi, also had entertainment topics, such as “Milkway match”. It consisted four figures from right to left: cowherd gives heaven cloth back to the girl weaver; the girl weaver wearing the heaven cloth fly away and the cowherd try to follow with their son and daughter; the lady king draw the Milky Way between them; they meet on the seventh of every July in beautiful clothes. One side of the painting had a water lily and the other side had a pied magpie. The form. of this painting looked like Shangdong paper-cut and could sever really well as a decoration for the window during the holidays.

These paintings can not only server the purpose of decoration, but also as conversation topics. The folks can enjoy the entertainment in these stories and have a happy new- year holiday.

4). Content on folk’s daily life

The new -year paintings were outcomes of folk’s life. However, it took a long way for these paintings to reflect folk’s life in reality. The paintings started from imaginations far from reality to satisfy the spiritual needs, and then moved to real persons, and then to real life. Folk-custom New Year paintings were the first type in describing real life.

 “Bragon boat racing”, “The seventh of July”, “New Year”, and “Whip the cattles in spring” were all paintings illustrating the folk-customs in varies seasons. There were also paintings illustrating the activities of officials, farmers, business and workers, such as “The Gusu ten thousand year bridge”, “The Shangtang Puji Bridge”, “The 360 professions”. Among them, “The Gusu ten thousand year bridge” draw the bridge on the topic section of the painting. There were crowding passing by on the top of the bridge, and boats passing by underneath. It also showed dragon boat racing. Both sides of the river and city streets were filled with buildings and business, including silk stores, sauce and pickle stores, liquor stores, smelteries, etc.

This painting reflects the city development ofSuzhouand the flourish life in a safe environment. The most representative paintings of rural life are “Ten busy men” and “Ten busy women” from Yangjiabu. It is unknown when the “Ten busy men” was created. The earliest available copy was reproduced in Qing dynasty. The painting described ten types of farming work: ploughing, sowing, hoeing, cutting, etc. The “Ten busy women” was a companion painting of the former one. It described the ten types of spinning and weaving work: gining, fluffing, spinning, etc. The textile industry during that period of time was well recorded by this painting. The above paintings were personally experienced by the painters. They were the change point of new- year painting from illustration to reality. People’s love for life and work were genuinely expressed in these paintings. People feel pleasure when looking at these artworks on their own life and rediscover the beauty of life.

5). Content on social events and development

In Yangjiabu new- year paintings, “People’s mountain”, “the Boxers”, “Queen mother Cixi run to Changan”, etc. reflected people’s desire for social change. “People’s mountain” was one of the earliest Yangjiabu paintings. It showed that people asked for a change of the tough ruling under King Zhu Yuanzhang. Another one with similar topic was “Dragon raised head”, which showed a King wearing crown and dragon robe was ploughing the field with the queen and officials. This painting showed that people wish the king can feel the hard work of farmers and understand their desire.

There were also paintings like “Practice military drills in female school” and “Citizens inBeijingtake their clothes back from the pawn shop”. The former was carved around the event “Wu Xu reformation” in 1898. The government was forced to sign some unfair treaties which upset the citizens. Some people promoted the idea of gender equality. New type of schools for both men and women were build to improve the education and nation’s ability to defend itself.

“Practice military drills in female school”[5]was created under the above social event. It was called “Reformation new year’s painting” by Yizong Peng, the editor of “Beijing Local Daily”. There was a modern style. front yard with modern style. gas light hanging above. Eight female students wearing military uniform. and boots lining up in two rows were practice shooting with a female instructor watching and evaluating. “Citizens inBeijingtake their clothes back from the pawn shop” described an event in year 1900, in which the working class inBeijingwent into the pawn shop to take their clothes back due to the terrible living condition. The law at that time allowed death penalty to anyone who “rob” properties. The spirit of having a revolution against the death inspired the painting to carve this painting and was sold widely in north and north eastChina. Compare with the Yangliuqing new years paintings, the Yangjiabu paintings were more idealistic in the social event topics, whereas the Yangliuqing paintings were much more realistic. However, they all share the character of reflecting people’s desire for social reformation.

By examining the above five topics, it can be seen that the topics and contents of the new year paintings went through the path from superficiality to profoundity: driving devils and avoiding misfortunes, good luck and fortune, entertainment and enjoyment, folk’s daily life, and social events and development. The new year paintings were created in folk’s life as folk’s arts, and they have brought satisfaction and pleasure to folks.

2.Artistic characteristics and folk’s aesthetic taste

The artistic characteristics of the new year paintings are mainly formality. There are several components for the formality: composition, design, and color. The development of aesthetic taste of folks is based on the living environment, history and culture. The folk painters injected their own feelings and emotions in their carving and painting objects. The artistic characteristic of their works expressed the aesthetic taste of folks.

In following paragraphs, the characteristics of new year paintings are discussed in terms of composition, model and color.

1). Composition and folk aesthetic taste

The properties of the composition of wood new -year paintings were integrity, symmetry, simplicity, and fullness. There were two factors that caused the above properties. The first was that the folk painters tried to carry as much figures and ideas in an area no more than several square feet. The only choice is to be “full” and “direct”, which was significantly different from the paintings of intellectuals. The second was that the wood paintings were printed by hand. If there were lots of empty space on the wood printing plate, the paper will be saturated by ink. Thus, the paintings needed to be full by adding some mascots to the empty space. For example, silver ingots and copper coins were added to “Bao Gong takes his post”; a round window with two females playing with a baby was added to “Five ways of fortune coming” to balance the composition. This method of adding contents not only solved the technical issue of printing, but also extended the implications of the paintings.

In fact, the subjective factors were more important in the development of the composition properties. The tradition and folk culture had the most impact. First, the composition was affected by the traditional Chinese paintings, which emphasized “express the opinion”. Thus, those unrelated scene and natural viewing perspective were not considered by the new- year paintings. This is one of the major properties of new -year paintings and also one of the major difference between eastern and western paintings. Second, the folk culture had the dominant guidance to the subject’s behavior. Chinese peasants loved life, loved working, looking forward to fortune, and expect good luck. In their very difficult life, they have been pursuing “safe fill with cash, barn fill with wheat, house fill with sons and grandsons, good luck, live long, and good fortune”. Thus, although “fullness” did not really happen to them, that was their ultimate goal. The composition of new- year paintings fitted their aesthetic taste because the composition was consistent with their psychological needs in form.

2).Model and folk aesthetic taste

The model of wood new- year paintings refers to the way of handling the main figures in the paintings. The basic rules were described by a pithy formula of Yang Jia Bu artists: Big head, small body, no blanks, and at least 80% of the face”. By examining the new- year paintings over different period of times, all of them had this modeling characteristic. For example, a chunky baby face took a quarter of the enter picture in Yang Jia Bu’s “House full with gold and jade”. It is much over the limit of realistic human body. While in the door gods painting “Qin Qiong and Jing De”, the figure’s heads were significantly enlarged and bodies widened. It was highly exaggerated and transformed. However, it did not make the painting unrealistic. Instead, the figures looked more awe inspiring. In the paintings with many figures, the modeling characteristics were clearer. In “Ten busy men”, there were 12 figures on two levels. They were all doing different works, but all of them showed a full or 80% of the face.

The “exaggeration” and “fullness” modeling characteristics were developed to fit the folk’s aesthetic taste. First, the eagerness and emotion of the folks in pursuing enjoyment matched the exaggerated figures. The perception of models was not “seen” by eyes, but mind. True figures did not reflect their spiritual demand. What fitted their “mind” was what needed. Furthermore, the life was very harsh and full with unsatisfied. Thus, the demand for spiritual “perfection” was very strong. Many folk taboos were the result of “perfection”. For example, if a figure does not have all the body parts, then folks may think it damages the living characteristics of the object and it lacks positive meaning. This was the way how folks understand the world. The folk painters deeply understand folks’ needs. Figures lacking an arm or a leg never happened, whereas many figures ignored the perspective and ratio to match the aesthetic taste. As Chaowen Wang said, “the folk’s fine art is a mean of emotional communication. It dares to transform. and illustrate, removing undesired factors, and emphasize the desired factors by relative abstraction”[6].

3). The use of colors and folk aesthetic taste

The painters developed lots of experiences on using colors in their long time practice. These experiences were summarized as pithy formulas. “Violet is bad and red is new, too much yellow is shallow, too much green is old. Red, yellow, and green are OK, violet to be avoided”, “Yellow is preferred, violet to be avoided”, “Violet is the bone and green is the muscle. Red and yellow make it new”, etc. The last one was concluded as a basic rule by Yangjiabu painters over many years of artistic work. Because violet and green are secondary and cool colors, they have a background look to the viewers when used with warm colors such as red and yellow. Thus, using them to outline the figures makes the figure structure clear. Red and yellow are warm colors and stands out as the foreground. They are complementary colors for green and violet. They not only give the figures active and attractive feelings, but also work together with the outline color to provide consistency. Furthermore, a three dimensional impression can be formed because of the “foreground” and “background” effects. Thus, although no perspective techniques were used in folk fine arts such as new -year paintings, the use of different colors can create some 3-D effects.

There were some folk explanations on why certain color combinations are preferred, such as “Red and green bring good luck”, “You can never have enough red and green”, “Red between yellows make you happy”, and “Yellow among pinks light things up”. Happiness and good fortune are the permanent goal of folks’ life. Folks like the colors which can represent these desires. In Chinese culture, red and yellow are connected with positive meanings such as happiness, good luck, winning, active, light, hope, moving forward, etc. These cultural believes were unconsciously adopted in Chinese new year paintings to make some colors the language of expressing good fortune[7]. The use of these colors catered to the folks’ aesthetic taste.

Reference:

1.    Susanne K. Langer: Problems of art.New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957

2.    潘鲁生：《论中国民间美术》.北京：工艺美术出版社，1990

3.    王树村：《中国民间年画百图》.北京：人民美术出版社，1988

4.王朝闻：《似曾相识》北京：文化艺术出版社，1987

5.胡潇：《民间艺术的文化寻绎》长沙：湖南美术出版社，1994