(New Year's Day)
China News Service, Taiyuan, January 20th, title: The New Year's Picture Complex of the Elderly: Recording the "New Year's Taste" of the Spring Festival for 60 years
Author Gao Yuqing
"New Year pictures, New Year pictures, New Year pictures." Meng Yangyu, a Shanxi painter who has painted New Year pictures all his life, is nearly ninety years old, and let a piece of festive work enter thousands of households in China.
In an interview with reporters on the 20th, he said that among Chinese folk, New Year pictures are symbols of the New Year. "I hope that through the exhibition of New Year pictures, people will be reminded of their childhood memories of the New Year and their attention to Chinese folk culture."
Spectators use mobile phones to take pictures of New Year paintings.
Photo by Wei Liang
During the big cold season, the Shanxi Archaeological Museum Chongsheng Temple, the sky is snowing slowly.
In the exhibition hall on the west side, the New Year paintings attract the public to stop and watch.
Right now, there are less than two weeks left before the traditional Chinese festival, the Spring Festival.
For overseas Chinese, the Spring Festival is one of the most important festivals of the year.
Preparing New Year's goods, pasting Spring Festival couplets, hanging New Year's pictures, eating group dinner, observing the New Year, paying New Year's greetings... everything is indispensable.
It is these Spring Festival customs that constitute a strong "New Year flavor".
Meng Yangyu introduced that New Year pictures are a kind of Chinese painting. They began in the Han Dynasty and reflected the cultural connotation and meaning of "Nian" in folklore. .
"When we were young for the New Year, we would put up New Year pictures, look at them, and learn knowledge and receive education from the pictures." Meng Yangyu told reporters that it was because of the New Year pictures that he stepped into the art of painting.
People stop and watch in front of the New Year paintings.
Photo by Wei Liang
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Meng Yangyu created a large number of New Year pictures, reflecting China's folk culture, urban development and the changes of the times.
His works have been exhibited in Taiyuan, Qingdao, Jinan and other places for many times, and have been collected by domestic and foreign museums and collectors such as China, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Singapore.
Xu Shiwen, an editor, painter and art critic of the National Taiwan Museum of Art, once commented on Mr. Meng Yangyu's works in the article "A Brief Discussion on the Development of Chinese Figure Paintings": "The rest of the works similar to New Year paintings are quite meticulous and realistic in Chinese and Western classical techniques. Kung fu is home, the color is rich and not tacky, the shape is vivid, and the expression is natural."
Among the works exhibited that day, a New Year picture made into a three-dimensional display board is the most eye-catching, which is "Ten Thousand Lanterns in Beijing" created by Meng Yangyu in 1982.
I saw a few children wearing padded jackets and trousers, holding all kinds of lanterns, lined up in a long line, on the other side, a boy was carefully preparing to set off firecrackers, and the younger boy was covering his ears.
The two protagonists imitate their childhood self in the New Year pictures in front of the works.
Photo by Wei Liang
It is worth mentioning that the two protagonists in the New Year picture also appeared at the exhibition on the same day and imitated their childhood self in the New Year picture in front of this work.
"It's the painter's youngest son who covers his ears, and it's me who's going to light firecrackers." Meng Yangyu's nephew Wang Zhiji told reporters that every time he sees this New Year picture, it can evoke his memory of celebrating the Spring Festival as a child.
Meng Yangyu said that his works can be loved and favored by the people, and he can't help but feel comforted, and a pleasant sense of happiness arises spontaneously.
New Year pictures carry people's yearning for a better life.
He said, "The New Year pictures carry the people's yearning for a better life. The Spring Festival is approaching, I hope that my New Year pictures can awaken the 'new year' in my memory." (End)