A-Z of New Year art

New Year picture samples on display at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Photos by Jiang Dong

The Festive Art Show presents folk art, Spring Festival couplets and calligraphy through the ages and up to the present. Zhu Linyong reports

There are more than 20 different types of temple fairs in Beijing during the Spring Festival - but nothing quite like the "cultural temple fair" at the National Art Museum of China.

Unlike other temple fairs where you can buy various snacks, kebabs and handicrafts from across China, the on-going Festive Art Show offers over 500 kinds of folk art, New Year pictures in particular, and calligraphy works.

"This is not the routine type of festival show. It has a fresh approach and will change people's stereotypical perceptions of Chinese art," says museum dean Fan Di'an.

On entering the museum, one finds a lively Lunar New Year atmosphere, full of gold frills, red lanterns, paper-cuttings of tigers, conspicuously large Spring Festival couplets and hanging scrolls on the 10 m columns.

The centerpiece couplet in the entrance was composed by emperor Meng Chang, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on a peach board, in AD 964.

Widely believed to be the first couplet for New Year celebrations, the couplet reads in Chinese: "Xin nian na yu qing", and "jia jie hao chang chun". It means "enjoy the boon of our forefathers in the New Year as the festival ushers in a beautiful spring season".

On the first floor of the museum, viewers can explore a maze of folk art, as a dozen exhibition halls have been converted and decorated to mimic various public or private spaces.

For instance, viewers will find lifelike yingbi, or screen doors, painted with tigers, or cherubic babies, alongside such auspicious images as carp, peaches and lotus that signify fortune, prosperity and good luck.

There is also a stage for folk operas, flanked by whitewashed walls in the style of ancient residential buildings.

The stage is decorated with the images of heroes and heroines from the past and motifs from late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) New Year pictures.

The walls are decorated with New Year pictures and calligraphy scrolls, just like in the past.

Among the 304 New Year pictures on show, most are traditional, while about 90 pieces are so-called "reformed New Year pictures" from the 1950s, created by ink painters and print-makers, such as Li Keran, Zhang Ding, Gu Yuan and Yan Han.

To keep their distance from traditional New Year pictures, these artists have introduced images of heroes during the Opium War in the 19th century and the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). In addition, they feature farmers, industrial workers, and top leaders such as former chairman Mao Zedong besides the folk art genre, reflecting the nation's socialist construction of the 1950s and 1960s, explains curator Yi E.

"These New Year picture samples demonstrate how a traditional art genre evolves with the times," Yi says.

The New Year picture, or nianhua, is an important component of traditional Chinese culture, Yi says.

The museum has over the past decades accumulated more than 3,000 top quality New Year pictures in major styles from more than 10 key production bases from across China.

To give viewers a close look at how New Year pictures are made, folk art master Zhang Dianying and his son Zhang Yunxiang, from Weifang, Shandong province, give performances on the first floor of the museum.

"There must be drama in a New Year picture. Otherwise, it will be a failure," says Zhang Dianying, 70, who was honored in 1992 by UNESCO for preserving the century-old folk art since the early 1980s.

Father and son have pushed the boundaries in this traditional art genre over the past years through technological innovation and adding trendy elements.

They have brought along a portable set of drawing, carving and printing gadgets they invented a decade ago. Visitors are encouraged to use a carved wooden block, brush and paper to create a nianhua.

Within minutes, they can make a brightly-colored New Year picture in the Yangjiabu Style, that have been created in the Weifang area for centuries.

Viewers can also buy a wide range of folk works the Zhangs have created at the museum's art store.

Among their revised New Year picture artworks are hand-made New Year greeting cards, birthday cards, invitation cards, name cards, money pockets, T-shirts, catalogues, and ex-libris pieces.

Apart from the New Year pictures, over 250 calligraphy works guide the viewers through a condensed history of the popular art that straddles the figurative and the abstract.

The curatorial team has gathered about 250 calligraphy works, mostly new commissions, to represent eight typical contexts, namely: New Year celebration, palaces and temples, village life, natural locations, gardens, commercial venues, traditional Chinese residences and modern residences.

In the village life section, for instance, you can hear the sounds of chirping birds and gurgling streams, wander through gray-colored gates, walls, and wooden pavilions, all decorated with calligraphy, usually ancient poems and classic couplets, to eulogize idyllic living or to preach Confucianism.

The most startling section, however, is calligraphy today, which is arranged like the sitting room of a contemporary middle-class Chinese family.

Viewers find calligraphy in every corner of the room, along with oil paintings, posh bar tables and chairs, casual leather sofas, a white, slim screen TV set, and glistening crystal bulbs and lamps.

The background music is upbeat jazz, a sharp contrast to the low-key guqin music available in the section for traditional Chinese homes.

"Many people today see Chinese calligraphy as a pure art form far removed from daily living, which is not true," curator Yang Yingshi says.

"Since ancient times, calligraphy has been an integral part of daily life I believe it will continue to be but in a new way."

"This is fantastic! I've never seen such a show that gives calligraphy so many possibilities for modern living," says Mao Guifang, a visitor from Beijing.

Mao was impressed by Zhu Qingsheng's mural-like crimson calligraphy, which resembles the iconic Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara at first sight.

She also loved an installation work by Shanghai artist, Wang Nanming, created by rolling paper sheets with hand-written Chinese characters into numerous small balls, and then lining and sticking them together on a square board.

But Mao admits she found some of the experimental calligraphy works, such as the strange characters created by Gu Wenda and Sa Benjie, "baffling and even impossible to decipher".

"This exhibition reminds people of a much wider space and diverse forms of existence for calligraphy in the new century," says museum dean Fan.

To cultivate an interest in traditional art, the museum has been inviting families to drawing and calligraphy lessons. The festive show ends on March 3.