New Year Customs Exhibition Scene
Text/YangchengBabaylan Evening News All-Media Reporter Sun Lei Correspondent WuKomiksQidong Wang Liang
Photo/Ratty Li Yuanqing
When you mention the Guangdong New Year Customs, what will you think of first? Some customs such as visiting the flower street, Cinema, washing the sloppy, etc., are still prosperous; some customs such as worshiping the Kitchen God on the 23rd day of the lunar calendar and worshiping the God of Wealth on the 2nd day of the lunar calendar, which were once an indispensable part of the Lingnan Spring Festival, and KomiksCinema but they are gradually fading away with the development of the times. Recently, Southern Media and Nanfeng Academy held a special exhibition on Lingnan New Year Customs, including not only Foshan woodblock New Year paintings and Guangdong paper cutting national intangible cultural heritage projects, but also Lingnan New Year Customs publications, traditional Lingnan Halls, and paintings of famous Lingnan masters. The exhibition lasts until February 28. The highlight of the exhibition is two national intangible cultural heritage techniques that have a wide range of characteristics and integrate traditional New Year customs and Komiks cultures – Foshan woodblock New Year paintings and Guangdong paper cutting. Foshan woodblock New Year paintings began in the Song and Yuan dynasties, flourished in the Ming dynasties, flourished in the Qing dynasties to the early Republic of China, and were as famous as Yangliuqing, Tianjin, Taohuawu, Suzhou, and Weifang, Shandong. They are among the four major Chinese New Year paintings.One of the woodblock New Year pictures. It was once an important decoration for the family and homes in Lingnan. It was sold well in Lingnan and even overseas. It carries people’s yearning and wishes for a better life.
Due to the changes of the times, Cinema has gradually declined and even disappeared completely for a while due to the impact of modern lifestyles. It was not until the late 1990s that Feng Bingtang, the son of the famous New Year painting artist Feng Jun (Komiks’ name “Door God of the Door God”, gave up his original career in order to fulfill his father’s last wish, and re-study, so that woodblock New Year paintings can be seen again.
The Feng New Year Painting Workshop, which he founded, is the only existing workshop in Foshan that is still insisting on the production of New Year paintings. This exhibition displays the Feng New Year Painting Workshop’s complete set of production tools and production processes, as well as representative works such as “Door God” and “God of Wealth”. The simple and naive woodblock New Year pictures are used to portray the deep mark of Lingnan with a knife; one exquisite carving piece is passed down from the past to the present.
Guangdong paper cutting is another national intangible cultural heritage project in this exhibition. The paper-cut exhibits in this exhibition are from intangible cultural heritage inheritors and enthusiasts from Foshan, Shantou Chaoyang, Cinema, Leizhou and other places. They not only inherit the ancient intangible cultural heritage skills in authenticity, but also showcase the colorful areas of Lingnan.Its characteristics are combined with the love of modern people, and its bold innovation in artistic style and screen content.