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Spending Winter Days- New Year Paiting of Wuqiang, Hebei in Qing Dynasty

New Year picture is an image carrier of the Spring Festival culture. In China, by the close of the year, New Year pictures are pasted in many places to add auspicious atmosphere. As an age-old art, New Year pictures give expressions to the lifestyle and features of the people, their sentiments and aesthetic tastes. New Year pictures fall into three types in terms of working process: prints, carved paper and paper drawn. Prints mainly refer to ancient woodcut print. The working process includes primarily drawing draft, sketching outline, woodcutting, making plates, printing, painting and framing. Carved paper refers to carving

Ten Thousand Tael of Gold, auspicious painting of Suzhou, Jiangsu, in Qing Dynasty

patterns on paper, which gives a fine and vivid picture. Paper drawn, or gray put, refers to a special craft in which the artists use charcoal sticks to draw draft of lines, and then put drawing paper on the draft, by applying willow branch burning ash on it and copy, a few copies can be produced from each draft. To produce a beautiful painting, a set of processed have to be followed including coloring, lining in black, opening the facial features, rinsing hand, etc. “Gray put” pictures began to surface during the Chenghua Period (1465-1487) and became influential later on. The Japanese ukiyoe had assimilated the essence of the techniques of gray put.

The New Year Pictures originated from the door-god just like the spring couplets. According to the book Du Duan by Cai Yi (132-192) of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the pictures of Shen Tu and Yu Ler, two gods guarding the gateway to the high spirits were passed on the doors of the ordinary people. It was said that when Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty fell ill, he heard ghosts and monsters wail outside his sleeping quarters which disturbed his sleep all through the night. Knowing this, the two senior generals, Qin Shubao and Wei Chigong, offered to stand guard at the royal palace, one holding a sword, and the other two iron staffs. Later on, the emperor had the picture of these two generals drawn and pasted them on the palate gate. Since then, the custom of pasting door gods spread among the people. One is Qin Shubao, white faced with phoenix eyes, holding two maces; the other is Wei Chigong, black faced with round eyes, holding double iron-staffs.
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Eight Immortals Celebrating Birthday, a Beijing painted papercut of Qing Dynasty, collected by Wang Shucun

Paper cutting is a long-standin decorative folk art in China. The cutter first draws the designs on a piece of paper and then cuts it out with scissors or a knife. In the countryside, paper cuts are often stuck on windows and doors as auspicious and joyful decorations to mark festival and happy occasions. Often decorative patterns like beby, gourd, lots, etc. can be used to symbolize plenty of offspring and plenty of blessings. As a type of folk art, paper cutting evinces distinctive local features: unpretentious and uninhibited as in Shaanxi; graceful and fine as in Hebei ; resplendent and orderly as in Sichuan; exquisite and pleasing as in Jiangsu. Paper cuts are also used for decorating gifts or as a gift itself.

There are two chief crafts in preparing paper cutting, the scissor-cutting approach and the knife-cutting approach. Just as the terms suggest, with the scissor-cutting approach, the scissors are sued as tool. Component parts of a pattern are cut at first and paste into a whole, an then clip the pattern with sharp scissors to make a fine finish. By knife-cutting approach a paper is folded into several layers, which is placed on a soft mixture of ash and animal fat, and then cut carefully with a small knife. In comparison with scissor cutting, knife cutting can have more patterns cut at one time.

With reference to the skills, paper cutting falls into cut-in-relief, intaglio and mixed carving. The relief cutting process is

Eight Immortals, a figure papercut of Huangxian, Shandong in QingDynasty, kept in Shandong Art Gallery

a development of traditional Chinese linear pattern tracing approach. Works done using such approach are extraordinary exquisite with the lines cut as fine as hair. By intaglio the images appear more dignified and unaffected with bright spots or white lines incised into dark surface. The mixed carving suing relief cutting an incised into dark surface. The mixed carving using relief cutting and incised cutting alternatively, further enriched paper-cut manifestation. With respect to coloring, there are multicolor cutting, dyeing cutting and golden color cutting. By multicolor cutting, more than two polychrome sheets are put together to form a pattern before cutting. By dyeing cutting, dyeing liquid is dripped onto finished paper-cuts. The permeability of water can make the different colors seeping into each other without being confused, thus producing a bright and gorgeous effect. By golden color cutting, patterns are cut using golden paper and then set off with all sorts of colored paper so as to appeat resplendent and magnificent, suitable for festival decoration.
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Ming Dynasty eaglewood mandarin duck hand warmer, 5 cm high, 6.5 cm long, 6.5 cm wide

Woodcarving in China constitutes three major categories: architecture carving, furniture carving and artworks carving. Woodcarving as handiworks for display or fondling started from the Song Dynasty when the practice of fondling artworks gradually rose among men of letters and refined scholars. This prevailing custom reached its climax in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Furnishing artworks are a traditional category in wood carving, which are placed on cabinets, windowsills, tables, shelves, etc. Wood carving can also be used to decorate all sorts of furniture and other artworks such as jade-ware, cloisonné and chinaware.

Woodcarving can be seen all over the region on both sides of the Yangtze River where the best known includes the Dongyang woodcarving in Guangdong Province, the golden-lacquer woodcarving in Zhejiang Province, longan woodcarving in Fujian Province and Huizhou woodcarving in Anhui Province.

Dongyang County of Zhejiang Province has always been celebrated for being the “home of carving.” Dongyang woodcarving started from the Tang Dynasty, developed in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Dongyang carvings preserve the original textures and colors of the wood which, when meticulously polished, make the finished works appear smooth and lustrous. Relief carving is the essence of Dongyang woodcarving in which the depth of the patterns ranges between two and five millimeters. The centerpiece is focused on by the force of the cutting. The designs of Dongyang woodcarving lays stress on “carving all over the background,” which means to have patterns carved over the entire surface of the object so that it has three dimensional display while the background is fully covered. That is a unique artistic style.
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