Three weeks ago, Yang Wen, marketing director of Tianjin Yangliuqing Fine Arts Press, was standing shoulder to shoulder with enthusiastic viewers who packed into an exhibition she helped create.
It was the Exhibition of Selected Yangliuqing New Year Pictures at the National Art Museum of China in the centre of Beijing, which ended this month.
"Thousands of viewers, old and young, Chinese and foreign, came for the show," Yang recalled of what she claimed to be the largest show of its kind ever for Yangliuqing nianhua (New Year pictures) in the Chinese capital.
"Some viewers returned for a second look, with their family or close friends," Yang said.
Nostalgic as she is, "the exhibition is but a small part of our big plan to help revive the time-honored folk art," said Yang over the weekend in Beijing.
She is one of 50 people attending a week-long training program on preserving intangible cultural heritages at the State Centre for the Preservation of Ethnic and Folk Culture and Arts.
The centre is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and National Research Institute of Chinese Arts.
Yangliuqing nianhua art was listed as one of the center's 40 "Pilot Projects on Preserving Intangible Cultural Heritages in China" last December.
As a chief coordinator of the Yangliuqing pictures pilot project, Yang said: "Looking to the future, I feel a heavy responsibility on my shoulders."
As one of the most distinctive wood-block art forms in the country, the New Year pictures originated in the town of Yangliuqing in a western suburb of Tianjin in the early 17th century.
The works were then and still are made mainly through a combination of woodblock printing and hand painting.
Ingenious and unique in composition, fresh and smooth in line, vivid and life-like in form, and strong and rich in essence, Yangliuqing nianhua generally feature ancient beauties, lovely children, folk customs or stories from classical operas, myths and legends.
Over the years, especially after China began opening to the outside world, folk artists and managers have tried many different ways to preserve the ancient folk art, but many of these efforts met with controversy.
For instance, in the early 1980s, farmers in Yangliuqing Township started to open small studios.
But among their number were few well-trained artists so much of the work produced was of a lower quality and simplistic, such as door gods and auspicious pictures featuring peaches, plump children, lotus flowers or cranes.
Only a handful of older craftsmen who learned their skills in private nianhua studios can do a better job, according to Feng Jicai, a Tianjin writer and enthusiastic preserver of the folk art.
To widen profit margins, new techniques such as offset lithography and screen-printing are reportedly used to enhance the output of these small studios.
But this has been severely criticized by a number of folk art scholars.
"The old formula, from the raw materials and the way of treating the materials to the old techniques, is the root of the folk art," said Cui Jin, vice-director of Tianjin History Museum. "The use of new techniques will cut off the root."
Folk art scholar Li Yuan said: "The involvement of modern devices such as printing machines and computers is unavoidable in reproducing related products of Yangliuqing pictures.
"But the charm and value of genuine folk art lies in the old way of making it," Li said. "Hand-made artworks deserve much higher prices on the market, which is a confirmation of the original ideas and hard work of the folk artist."
In the face of fierce competition from printing houses with mass production technologies and better marketing skills based in Zhejiang Province's Yiwu, many small studios in Yangliuqing have suffered and some have even closed down, said Yang Wen.
So there has been a media outcry in recent years, calling to "save the dying art of Yangliuqing nianhua."
But that is a mistake, Liu Jianchao, president of the Tianjin Yangliuqing Fine Arts Press, pointed out.
"The art of genuine Yangliuqing pictures never dies. It still exists in Tianjin," Liu said.
From the very beginning, Yangliuqing nianhua art catered to the tastes of different social classes from ordinary farmers, city dwellers, to emperors of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) courts.
And the richness of sub-genres and varieties of the folk art itself attracted many ancient intellectuals to participate in the creation of nianhua art by contributing sketches of figures, landscapes, birds and flowers that are more refined than most of those produced by craftsmen of Yangliuqing pictures who only received training in the folk art's skills, Liu said.
This distinctive feature makes Yangliuqing nianhua art stand out, Liu said.
And Yangliuqing pictures produced by small, private studios only reveal part of the beauty of the art.
Liu's press has collected an unrivalled volume of 6,500 ancient wooden blocks for making New Year pictures, with the oldest from the Ming Dynasty, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of local artists and cultural officials since the 1950s.
And many of them, large in size and of intricate skill, were initially created for ancient royal families, according to Yang Zhengci, a retired editor with the Tianjin People's Fine Arts Press, who started to preserve the folk art in the 1950s.
Liu's company is fostering a younger generation of nianhua artisans who have already acquired at least a bachelor's degree in fine arts before they join the press, Liu said.
Today, the press employs about 100 well-trained professional artists to make Yangliuqing nianhua. Their works have been displayed in more than 20 countries, including the United States, France, Australia, Singapore and Japan as well as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Taiwan Province over the past few years.
The fine arts press has also developed at least 20 new methods to promote Yangliuqing nianhua pictures in fields like book-binding, commodity packaging, stage design, advertising and interior decorating, Liu said.
However, "there is still a long way to go to keep alive the art of Yangliuqing pictures," said Liu Jianchao.
The publishing house is busy sorting out existing files, its rich collection of woodblocks, sketches, and other Yangliuqing nianhua heritage to build up a database.
Liu said that with support from the local government, they are going to set up a large museum in the near future for Yangliuqing pictures. The museum could also be used as an important education base to raise awareness of the folk art among younger Chinese.
The press will also publish a complete set of photo albums of Yangliuqing nianhua art and books on research into the folk art, folk artists and its history.
Liu and his colleagues will continue to collect more information about classical Yangliuqing nianhua works that are believed to be owned by private collectors and museums at home and abroad.
Ambitious plans including a website to promote international awareness and sales of nianhua products in the coming years, and new branding strategies for the folk art are in the offing, said Yang Wen, adding that: "We need more support from society, and we especially need more investment."
That is why "I am excited about the fact that more and more people have come to see the value of the folk art, so that more and more action can be taken to preserve it," Yang said.
(China Daily May 27, 2005)
