Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 11. (Budapest, 1991)

FERENCZY Mária: A modernizáció megjelenése a századeleji kínai ábrázolásokon

MÁRIA FERENCZY MODERNIZATION IN CHINESE POPULAR PRINTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY NEW YEAR PRINTS FROM THE YANG-LIUCH TNG WORKSHOP In China it has been customary for centuries to adorn houses with pictures printed from wood-blocks to represent gods, to ward off evil spirits, or simply to serve as felicitous omens at the time of the lunar New Year, the most important feast in the traditional Chinese calendar. In these pictures, called New Year prints, many aspects of the traditional Chinese world arc shown, besides a diversity of deities and felicitations represented by symbolic means (not infrequently through the use of puns); figures and scenes from mythology and literature; theatrical scenes, indispensable requisites of any feast, of almost inexhaustible richness; folk-tales and the world of everyday life transformed into festive pageants.

1 These New Year prints were produced in towns, in workshops employing techniques handed down from generation to generation. They were printed on thin paper with coloured or plain printing blocks (made usually of pear-wood), or, for the more refined purchaser, were hand-coloured.

2 Besides a rich variety of themes, the composition, the colour scheme and the style of the pictures show a great diversity, and regional differences can be detected within the tradition common to all.

3 A New Year print can be both an individual work of art and, at the same time, a multifaceted piece of applied graphic art. Traditions of high art can be represented in it together with those of folk-art, of high literature and of folklore. It can offer rich and specialized source material for cultural history, as, quite naturally, the hereditary elements on the pictures are shot through with elements of everyday life. The printing tradition of these pictures is alive today: New Year pictures are still being produced, both with traditional and "modern" content. Old New Year prints are, however, rather rare: having been worn out during the course of use, until recently they never were collectors' items. Interest on the part of Sinology, ethnology and cultural history in these prints emerged only in the last decades — if we ignore collectors and the research work done by Ed. Chavannes and V. M. Alekseiev at the beginning of the twentieth century.'' The Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts presently owns fifty-four New Year prints which can be dated unequivocally as being produced before 1921. Of these, seventeen can be dated on stylistic grounds, on the basis of their colour scheme or the mark originating from the Yang-liu-ch'ing manufacturing centre in the vicinity of Tientsin and the neighbouring areas.

5 In what follows, these pieces are introduced.

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