Chinese Popular Prints [antikvár]

For many centuries the Chinese have decorated their homes on New Year's Eve with brighily-coloured pictures printed on paper, which were made specially for the occasion. In the nineteenth century the prints received the name of nianhua'' or New Year pictures. The emergence of nianhua as an art form was due largely to technical advances in the field of xylography, or woodblock printing, and to its various applications and growing popularity. Its origin can be traced back to the fifth century A. D. when printed icons and Taoist amulets somewhat similar to nianhua began to be produced in Buddhist and Taoist monasteries.^ Classical Chinese painting also exerted a great influence on the development of woodblock engraving and, consequently, on nianhua art. Traditional Chinese painting, which is closely linked to calligraphy, developed a certain repertory of subjects and artistic devices which were later absorbed by nianhua art. Some historical processes which gradually led to the emergence of this art form can be illustrated by a number of works of art preserved from the past. Although only a few of them have reached us, and there remain substantial temporal gaps between the surviving works, they nevertheless may be used as examples reflecting a general course of nianhua development as an independent art form. These common tendencies are the selection of subject-matter covering different aspects of Chinese life, the choice of artistic means based on simplified form of xylography (contour impressions or coloured prints), and the use of coloured ink washes, which was borrowed from traditional Chinese painting. In the early twentieth century researchers discovered a large number of icon-prayers in the so-called Mogao caves, an ancient Buddhist monastery near Dunhuang in Western China. They are woodblock prints depicting different deities. Each print was provided with the text of an appropriate prayer.® These primitive icons, printed by simple and cheap methods, were apparently accessible to a broad spectrum of Chinese society. For our purposes the most interesting of them are those showing the widely popular Chinese Bodhisattva, Guanyin. Of no less importance in determining the origin of nianhua are art works found in the ruins of the former Chinese city of Khara-Khoto. Outstanding among them was a group of woodblock prints illustrating the Buddhist Sutra about "the high Sovereign Guanshiyin" (one who hears the prayers of the world) published in the twelfth century." The Bodhisattva Guanyin became one of the main images in religious nianhua. Other prints of this group, not linked to Buddhism, also arouse substantial interest, particularly the woodblock print entitled "Here are the beauties who are close to the throne and by their loveliness and