A chip off the old block

"New Year paintings were one of the most widely circulated forms of media in ancient China. They reveal Chinese people's pursuit for happiness," says Shen Hong, a Hubei-based veteran collector and researcher of New Year paintings.

"Many historical figures standing for mental power appear in the paintings," he continues. "They are composed of a system of cultural codes that can be easily understood by Chinese people … and urge people to behave well and be honest."

Before Spring Festival in 2019, a three-year project was initiated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to revitalize the craft of the Chinese New Year paintings. Then, wodsy.com, which is affiliated to the ministry, began a comprehensive survey, recording the state of the aging art form across the country.

Thanks to the project, more people have come to realize the urgency of revitalizing the traditional craftsmanship of woodcut-printed New Year paintings.

The move, however, came just a little too late for two titans of the craft. Shortly after Spring Festival in 2019, Chen Hongbin's widely venerated grandfather, Chen Yiwen, who was also a national-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, died at the age of 90.

In similarly sad news from Suzhou, Jiangsu province, home to Taohuawu, another key woodblock print hub, around the same time that the project was launched, master artisan Fang Zhida passed away at the age of 83.

Chen Hongbin understands that the common difficulty facing many traditional art forms is that the practitioners and craftsmen are aging, which is what drives his strong determination to persist.

Chen Hongbin says he has regularly taught the techniques of woodcut printing in local elementary schools. He is also frequently invited to deliver lectures on the New Year painting genre at universities in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.

"Only when an appreciation and admiration of the tradition is passed down to younger generations, can the New Year paintings continue to thrive," he says.

He is glad that his two teenage children have also shown an interest in the craft and that he will possibly be able to pass on his torch in the future.

There are new methods being implemented in a bid to raise awareness of the paintings among younger people. In Taohuawu, for example, a local society for New Year paintings has cooperated with online games companies to design into their products some typical patterns associated with the paintings.

"Chinese people are influenced by the philosophies and values, which have been passed down for generations by the paintings, but we don't usually realize it," says Cheng Ying, a researcher with Suzhou Art and Design Technology Institute, where the Taohuawu society is now based.

Images of children, for instance, are seen in almost every New Year painting genre in China, and in Cheng's eyes, that represents the power of life blooming and the harmony of yin and yang.

Hao Qinyu, a director from wodsy.com, the organization in charge of the three-year project, points out that revival of the New Year paintings now has greater psychological significance.

"As always, the painting has represented people's best wishes for a good life, which includes the fight against the pandemic," she says. "They provide us strong emotional and spiritual strength."

Recalling Spring Festival last year, a tough time when Hubei province was the epicenter of China's COVID-19 outbreak, Chen Hongbin is happy to be enjoying a more upbeat Chinese New Year celebration this year.

"Though requirement to contain the virus means I still cannot go to many New Year fairs and exhibitions as I would normally, I have new online channels through which I can promote the print art more effectively and to a wider audience."

For the festival season, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched a nationwide project that refers to streaming media, short video-sharing platforms and live broadcasts of traditional Spring Festival celebrations around China.

About 160 intangible cultural heritage items are chosen for the project, and Laohekou's New Year painting is among them.

The conservation center for intangible cultural heritage in Laohekou has cooperated with video platforms, such as Douyin-known as TikTok outside China-and Kuaishou, to introduce the art form. More importantly, for many local people who cannot return to their hometown for Spring Festival due to efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, it is also a way of tapping their sense of nostalgia and easing their homesickness.

It is, perhaps, a nostalgia that belongs to all Chinese people.