Contesting Heritage: Nianhua Makers Stake Their Claims

In recuperating the surviving nianhua and woodblocks in its possession, the

Mianzhu Cultural Affairs Bureau reestablished ties with the elderly printmakers that had

participated in the 1950s print reform. The printmakers were hired to reproduce works in

their collection by carving new woodblocks based on historic designs and by printing the

old blocks. With access to these resources, Mianzhu’s printmakers used the opportunity

to help rebuild their own workshop repertoires. Well-poised to straddle both the folk art

export market and the seasonal print markets, they drew on their ritual knowledge and

innovative skills to reappropriate and redesign the historic nianhua for redistribution as

ritual goods in their workshops. Each workshop sought creative ways to enhance and

renew the historical prints’ ritual efficacy to “attract the auspicious, repel the portentous,”

especially by marketing their own signature skills in printing and painting. To illustrate

my point here, I will examine how the Chen and Li workshops incorporated the historic

nianhua into their existing repertoires. While Chapter Two examined their use of lineage

discourses to boost their position in the marketplace, this section will examine more

305 Theodor W. Adorno, “Valery Proust Museum,” in Prisms, trans. Samuel and Sherry Weber (Cambridge:

MIT Press, 1996), 175.

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closely their appropriation of the historic nianhua held in the state collection. I will argue

that in the process, they assert their own claims on heritage, not by presenting the works

as folk art as is the case in the Museum, but by reintroducing these works to the

marketplace as inexpensive ritual commodities.

In 1980, Mianzhu’s senior printmakers were invited to reconvene under the

auspices of the “Mianzhu Woodblock Nianhua Research Committee” 􀫥􁇰􀽅􀫥􁇰􀬡􀏰􀭍

􀟂􀿹􀣮􀟶, a resurrected version of the Nianhua Research Society tied to the 1950s print

reforms.306 The committee included officials, researchers, and a handful of elder

printmakers who were former members of the society.. These printmakers have become

known as “master artisans” 􀦺􁁜􀲦, a loaded term that constructs them as individual folk

artists. Yet, the works they make are often collaboratively produced and not the products

of single authors. They also come from varied backgrounds in the print industry, which

was highly stratified across class status and education. They were trained in different

aspects of the print production process, including the four major stages of designing,

carving, printing, and painting.

Here, I will again draw on the interviews I conducted with Chen Xingcai and Li

Fangfu in their print studios in 2006 and 2007. As discussed in Chapter Two, Chen

Xingcai is the leading elder of the Chen family workshop, also known as the “Southern

School” of Mianzhu nianhua. As a youth, Chen was trained as a painter and stamp carver

for the final stage of production. During his extended involvement in the Nianhua

Research Society of the 1950s-1960s and again in its new incarnation of the 1980s, Chen

copied many images from the historic woodblocks and later adapted these works to his

306 During the print reform era, the same committee was named the “Mianzhu Woodblock Print Nianhua

Society” 􀫥􁇰􀬡􀏰􀭍􀟂􀴠. The shift towards “research” in the name of the association signals a new policy

of revival and research rather than reform.

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own methods of carving, hand painted color application, and gold stamping. After the

interruption of the Cultural Revolution, Chen built up his own family workshop and

began teaching his skills to his whole family. After years of ideological campaigns

against traditional culture, Chen’s continued use of older images invokes a connection to

history, a certain nostalgia, and local pride.

For instance, in redesigning the Bicycle-riding Maiden print from the state

collection, Chen highlights his unique skills in painting and stamping (fig. 69). For Chen,

it is his signature use of these skills that makes the piece a part of his repertoire. While

the older work from the late 19th century uses pale shades of pink and yellow in the

costume (fig. 66), the Chen workshop version uses bright blue and pink, with the added

detail of gold flower stamps. The bicycle is also redesigned with bright colors on the

wheel spokes and handlebars. These approaches are an integral part of revitalizing the

auspicious functioning of the image and thus further legitimizing his adaptation. As Chen

says, “the more vibrant, the more auspicious, and the more people are drawn to it.” Chen

has used these elements in ways that innovate, invigorate, or renew the auspicious quality

of older works. This illustrates how the very notion of auspiciousness is neither fixed nor

bounded, but rather a site of creative experimentation as well as a way to highlight one’s

unique skill set.

Since the prints in the Museum’s collection were drawn from local households to

begin with, it is in a circular, if not ironic, fashion by which Chen’s copies serve to

reinscribe and reactivate those works within the domestic spaces and seasonal rituals of

his workshop and the households that display his works. Chen’s combined strategy of

mimesis and innovation thus allows his workshop to play on the tension between two

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poles: on one hand adapting to the unstable trends of a competitive market by claiming

historical authenticity, and on the other, retaining a distinct group identity through visual

difference. This approach, which creatively bridges past and present while maintaining

the auspicious efficacy of the images, has proven successful in that his family has now

gained celebrity status in the national nianhua market as well as received government

funding for a new workshop.

By tracing the trajectory of the Museum works, one can see how these move from

the space of the local household to the government museum, and back to the workshop

and household. Chen’s emulation or copying of these works reflects an effort to claim or

reclaim his workshop’s access to Mianzhu’s nianhua heritage, where heritage is

approached as a living body of knowledge that must be put into practice through

continued innovation and experimentation. His efforts also reflect a strategic marketing

move to appropriate high-status examples of traditional Mianzhu nianhua that are widely

known to contemporary audiences. This is similar to practices in earlier times, where

groups of rural craftsmen purchased the works of famous painters in the urban center of

Mianzhu, then mass-produced them in their workshops. Interestingly, the notion of the

authentic, historic original, as officialized by museum practices, does not hold much

ground in nianhua production and use, which is based on collaborative work, mass

production, and an annual renewal of auspicious images.

Li Fangfu, like Chen, was also a member of the Nianhua Research Society during

the print reform era and again in its current incarnation, but he takes a very different

approach to redesigning historical works. Li is also from a rural background and spent

many years as a farmer and a painter in local workshops, where he was trained in the

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final stage of detail application. In contrast to Chen, Li usually works alone, as his

children have moved away from Mianzhu to find work in larger cities. Although he also

creates prints, Li’s works are mostly larger format hanging scrolls or handscrolls for

interior display and long-term use. While Chen foregrounds his use of color and stamping,

Li redesigns and enhances the auspicious meaning of historical works through

highlighting his signature brushwork skills.

When asked about his approach to painting, Li links his brushwork directly to the

auspicious power of his images. According to Li, the embodied skill of the painter

becomes the direct vehicle for infusing an image with auspicious powers. Li argues that

the reason why people still buy hand painted images instead of photocopied ones is

because of they believe in the power of the painter’s touch: “A person who makes

pictures can ward off portentous forces, furthermore, an image maker possesses a

righteous spirit. The image fully reveals the quality of this spirit.” Pointing to his

painting, he continues, “take a look at this pair of paintings, look at the eyes in the face.

To paint this properly, the entire portrait should reveal an energetic spirit, no matter

where you stand or at which angle you view this, the image should be looking back at

you” (fig. 70). According to Li, the very last step in painting figures and creatures is the

“opening of the eyes” 􀤷􀽍 in which the painter adds the pupils to the eyes to awaken the

deity. In speaking about the door deity, Li’s use of language positions the deity as a

living, animated being. He further explains how the ritual efficacy of the images is tied to

the internal state of the highly trained painter:

An image-maker’s internal state should be still in order to transmit a righteous

spirit; without this, the image fails. Without this, calligraphers would not have

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expressive, upright characters; just by looking at their writing you can see their

level of internal development.307

Li goes on to describe how this skill is only attained through gradual, painstaking training

under a learned master. His own training was based on long hours of repetitive copying:

“I practiced so much, my wrists bled. After this, my hand was strong and controlled. Any

smallest movement should reveal your highest standard. To do this practice is to learn by

doing, and that learning never ends.” By pointing to a form of embodied knowledge,

gradually attained over time and through diligent training, Li foregrounds the

transmission of this knowledge through the mark of the painter. In doing so, he positions

his works as irreproducible and unique:

There is a myth from back in the day, that explains why door deities should be

made by hand. There was also mechanized printing back then, but these did not

sell as well as the works made by hand. Firstly, the painter was believed to repel

evil and secondly, the painter has an upright righteous spirit. This righteous spirit

is painted into the picture.308

Li Fangfu is well known for his reappropriation of the tianshuijiao, a work that has been

touted by the revival movement as an extraordinary example of Mianzhu nianhua

brushwork. Taking what was a small-format image made with leftover papers and paints,

Li completely transforms the historical format into a carefully painted work on oversized

vertical scrolls (fig. 71). This large format is usually reserved for high-end paintings that

are displayed inside high-ceilinged halls or on either side of a tall indoor entrance, and

are thus intended for permanent display rather than temporary use. Li appropriates the

prominent status of historic tianshuijiao, redesigns the genre using expensive materials,

307 Li Fangfu, in interview with the author, Mianzhu, Sichuan, June 2006.

308 Ibid.

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and has sold such works to visiting collectors and researchers for high prices. In doing so,

Li has positioned himself in direct competition with the museum’s giftshop, which also

sells high-end nianhua products based on reproductions of historical works.

Both Chen and Li have placed emphasis on the auspicious power of their works,

which they refer to both as “folk art” and as living deities for ritual use. The two

categories are not treated as oppositional or exclusive, but comfortably inclusive or even

desirable. In contrast to the Museum, which tends to marginalize nianhua’s ritual

histories, Chen and Li straddle both worlds to play to the folk art market as well as the

ritual print economy. Thus, the Chen and Li workshops have developed strategies to take

advantage of folk art discourses while also challenging institutional definitions of

heritage that narrowly focus on tangible assets. These examples illustrate the contested

nature of nianhua heritage, where meaning is asserted through embodied practices

involving historic designs as well as a “range of activities that include remembering,

commemoration, communicating and passing on knowledge and memories, asserting and

expressing identity and social and cultural values and meanings.”309

I will stress here the critical need to keep in view how these embodied practices

not only shape the meaning of specific works but also how the works themselves activate

and enable certain practices. Both Chen and Li play off of historic designs in ways that

boost their position in the marketplace, enabling them to capitalize on the high status of

these works while asserting their own unique claims to heritage. For these workshops, the

privilege of having access to old woodblocks comes down to a matter of livelihood and

survival in a competitive business where they must compete against a range of state-led

revival activities. The significance of heritage is not only negotiated through abstract

309 Smith, The Uses of Heritage, 83.

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discourses that construct the value of certain objects, but also, perhaps even more

critically in this case, through direct forms of embodied engagement with those objects

deemed valuable.