- •Abstract
- •Involved in recognizing nianhua as a living entity.
- •Innovating the Auspicious: Mianzhu’s Door Deity Markets….………..………………… 25
- •List of figures
- •Glossary
- •Acknowledgements
- •In Sichuan, I am ever grateful to my mentor Liu Zhumei, an accomplished artist
- •Is far more complicated than a restaging of traditional practices.7
- •Variety of works appears on doorways as door deities and spring couplets, including
- •3,250,000 In 1736 and to an impressive 21,400,000 recorded in the 1812 state census.34
- •In Mianzhu reached a high level of development, with over one hundred large workshops
- •53 Anthropologist Stefan Landesberger has studied how printed images tied to the “Mao cult” of the
- •Nianhua as a Living Archive?
- •In recent years however, the disciplines of anthropology and art history both
- •In response to Asad’s argument, Catherine Bell contends that ritual practices
- •Visual symbolism of nianhua, the central issue of its ephemerality has largely gone
- •Involvement of state agencies in collecting, exhibiting, and commodifying nianhua has
- •Performing Engaged Research
- •Chapter Breakdown
- •Including the ritual significance of many historic nianhua.
- •Harnessing the Seasonal Nianhua Market
- •Variety of printed works (fig. 21). A curious crowd is gathered around the stand to
- •Instead of focusing on objects or practices in isolation, the notion of an agentic
- •Reunion and Regeneration: Nianhua and the Lunar New Year
- •In Mianzhu, I observed a less structured approach to celebrating the Lunar New
- •Images of Chairman Mao and communist soldiers were circulated and consumed during
- •Variety to choose from and the images are not expensive. They also get more
- •Lineage-making Strategies for Reclaiming Authority in the Nianhua Marketplace
- •Imposition of European concepts of “descent,” especially in the concept of zongwhich
- •Wang Family Lineage
- •It is significant that Wang chose to share his lineage documents before taking out
- •In contrast to the carvers, printers, and those trained in the final stages of coloring
- •In the other hand, a blessed citron fruit known as a Buddha’s hand . All three figures
- •In examining Wang’s sketches and lineage documents alongside his finished
- •The Northern School of Mianzhu Nianhua
- •Industry as apprentices and hired hands. While year-round designers such as the Wang
- •Various kinship terms of zu and zong used by Wang Xingru in reference to his position in
- •The Southern School of Mianzhu Nianhua
- •Conclusion
- •Including art historian Catherine Pagani’s study of Chinese popular prints based on the
- •The Medicine King: Performative Gestures and the Art of Storytelling
- •I will begin with a critique of a storytelling session that vividly captures how an
- •In her hair. It got stuck in the crevice between his teeth. [Bares his teeth and
- •2006 With Han Gang, we met with Chen Xingcai’s eldest grandson Chen Gang, who was
- •In the oral culture of nianhua. For instance, Wang Shucun has commented on orally
- •Transformations Between Theater and Print
- •Recovering Narrative Density in Greeting Spring
- •Conclusion
- •Mianzhu Nianhua Museum: Putting the Past in its Place
- •In summary form by the leading researcher Shi Weian. According to Shi, the team
- •In framing the historical context of nianhua, the museum displays directly reflect
- •Contesting Heritage: Nianhua Makers Stake Their Claims
- •Mianzhu’s Nianhua Village and the Rise of Intangible Heritage Tourism
- •In its murals. On the other hand, it presents nianhua’s intangible heritage as a temporal
- •Village and its murals. Reflecting the propagandistic messages of “social harmony”
- •Is also the character for “earth” (tu ), a rather derogatory word often used to describe an
- •Racing for the Intangible: the Nianhua Festival as Performative Statecraft
- •Is carefully depicted to reflect age, class status, and/or a clearly defined role in the
- •The High-end Heritage Industry: Replicas and Remakes
- •In contrast to the painting term linmo, which allows for a degree of interpretation
- •Conclusion
- •Chapter Five: Conclusion
- •An Industry Based on Innovation
- •In Chapter Two, I stressed this point by examining the innovative practices
- •In this study, I selected interview excerpts that best demonstrated the performative
- •Vested interests in keeping the tangible and intangible aspects of nianhua distinct. Instead
- •Interests.
- •Demystifying the Auspicious
- •Impossible to tease out the continuities and changes of the nianhua industry. Indeed both
- •Future Directions and Post-Earthquake Reconstruction
- •Figures
- •Bibliography
- •Xisu ji qi xiandai kaifa” [The modern
LIVING AUSPICIOUSNESS: THE RESURGENCE OF MIANZHU’S
NEW YEAR PICTURE (NIANHUA) INDUSTRY
by
APRIL LIU
BA, Whittier College, 1999
MFA, Michigan State University, 2003
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Fine Arts)
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)
April 2012
© April Liu, 2012
ii
Abstract
Chinese nianhua, or “New Year Pictures,” refers to a broad category of popular
prints and paintings displayed during the Lunar New Year but also throughout the year to
mark seasonal festivals, life cycle rituals, and popular religious practices. Despite the
widespread circulation of nianhua today, the scholarly literature has largely characterized
it as a thing of the past, as that which died out with the state circumscription of the
woodblock printing industry during the 1950s print reforms and the ban on nianhua
during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Although the industry has since rebounded,
the scholarship continues to relegate nianhua to the past, as a prescriptive tradition
represented by historic works rather those emerging in the marketplace.
Drawing on historic archives, interviews, and firsthand observations, I will
critique the recent rise of nianhua in Mianzhu, Sichuan. The primary goal is to rethink
nianhua as a “living archive,” an evolving body of works firmly embedded in its
immediate contexts of production and use. Mianzhu is a powerful case study because its
historic woodblock printing industry never completely died out during the upheavals of
the 20th century. In the early 1980s, the industry was catalyzed by a resurgence of ritual
practices and a state-led folk art revival, two competing and often conflicting discourses
that have fought for prominence in the marketplace. These developments push for a
performative view of nianhua, where meaning is not fixed in representation but
continually innovated upon, appropriated, and activated in situ to meet specific ends.
Building on the “performative turn” in art history and ritual studies, this study
challenges methodological approaches that treat nianhua as discrete visual texts or folk
art objects belonging to a shared system of auspicious signs and symbols. Each chapter
deploys a different strategy for rethinking nianhua’s attributed function to “pursue the
auspicious, repel the portentous” as an open-ended site of contestation tied to ritual
agency, lineage identity, and symbolic capital in the marketplace. Moving away from
decoding symbols and towards analyzing practices, this study reveals the high stakes
Involved in recognizing nianhua as a living entity.
iii
PREFACE
This study was conducted with the approval of the Behavioural Research Ethics
Board (BREB) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The
certificate number is H06-03704.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...………..ii
Preface.……………………………………………………………………………………………iii
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………….....………iv
List of Figures………………………………………………………………….………….…….....v
Glossary……………………………………………….....……………...…...……………………ix
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...………....v
Dedication…...……..……………………………………………………………………...………vi
Chapter One:
The Living Archive of Mianzhu Nianhua …………...…....…….………………….……………..1
“Little Chengdu” and the Historic Print Trade…….…………...……..…………………….11