Acknowledgements

This project would not be possible without the dedicated efforts of my lead

supervisor, Dr. Hsingyuan Tsao, who provided me with the invaluable learning

experiences, contacts, and research opportunities that led to its fulfillment. I am also

deeply indebted to Dr. Katherine Hacker for directing me towards many of the key

debates between art history and anthropology that have shaped this study. A special

thanks goes to Dr. Catherine Swatek, for imparting her profound knowledge of Chinese

vernacular literature and drama, to Dr. Leo Shin for sharing his expertise in the history of

late imperial China, and to Dr. Diana Lary, Dr. Marvin Cohodas, and Dr. Sharalyn

Orbaugh for their insightful comments during the final stages of this project. I am also

very grateful to Dr. Ellen Johnston Laing, a leading expert in Chinese popular art and

nianhua who provided invaluable suggestions for polishing this study.

I must extend my gratitude to Dr. Elizabeth Johnson for assisting with the

preliminary research conducted at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC, and

to Dr. Daniel Overmyer and Dr. Paul Crowe for guiding me in the study of Chinese

popular religion. I am also indebted to artist and professor Gu Xiong, who shared his

hands-on knowledge of Sichuan’s printmaking traditions and who invited me to study his

private collection of Mianzhu nianhua. A most heartfelt thanks goes to Jean Kares and

Dr. Nate Bohy for their diligent efforts in copyediting and proofreading this text, to Dr.

Emily Beausoleil for leading me to key texts in critical theory, and to Yanlong Guo for

helping me locate research materials in China.

In Sichuan, I am ever grateful to my mentor Liu Zhumei, an accomplished artist

and researcher at the Mianzhu Nianhua Museum, and to Ning Zhiqi, the lead researcher

and director of Mianzhu’s Cultural Relics Bureau. With the support of Liu and Ning, I

was able to conduct in-depth interviews in Mianzhu’s printshops and to gain access to

many historic archives of Mianzhu nianhua. I am also indebted to Hou Rong, editor-inchief

at Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing, for providing out-of-print resources on Sichuan’s

nianhua history and for arranging my visit to the Sichuan Theater Research Institute. I

am grateful to art historian Gao Wen for showing me his private collection of Chinese

woodblock prints and paintings, and to Han Gang, Si Daoan, Jinlan Gong, and Gao

Hongzhu for their warm hospitality during my travels and for their superb translations of

the Mianzhu dialect and its many obscure references. A very special thanks goes to Kris

Balfe and Wang Hong for assisting with photography.

I am truly honored to attribute the credit for this project to this excellent

community of friends and colleagues on both sides of the great Pacific Ocean.

vi

DEDICATION

For my loving parents, Stephen and Shirley Liu, who raised me in two cultures and who

taught me the value of the old adage, “read ten thousand books, walk ten thousand miles”

􀘀􀺣􀤜􀶀􀀍􀀁􀾛􀺣􀧚􀩞􀀏􀀁

1

Chapter One: The Living Archive of Mianzhu Nianhua

Nestled against the mountainous edge of the Chengdu plains in southwest China,

the rural township of Mianzhu 􀫥􁇰, Sichuan lies roughly 150 kilometers north of

Chengdu, the provincial capital. Reflecting about thirty years of steady urbanization,

Mianzhu is a work in progress, with small farming communities interspersed with hightech

factories, unfinished development projects, and scattered billboards announcing

future construction. The urban core is a complex web of historic cobblestone alleys

pressed against wide boulevards and sleek shopping centers (fig. 1). I visited Mianzhu

several times in 2006 and 2007 to study its historic nianhua woodblock printing and

painting industry, which has thrived there since the Song dynasty period (960-1279 CE).

Although the existing literature on the topic tends to characterize nianhua as a thing of

the past, I soon discovered that Mianzhu’s nianhua industry is very much alive and

growing rapidly. Reflecting the thick palimpsest of old and new spaces in the region,

Mianzhu’s nianhua now appear in variety of rather incongruous contexts - as ritual

ephemera displayed on the doors and walls of local households but also as folk art objects

found in gift shops, museums, or touristic heritage attractions.

The term nianhua 􀭍􀟂, commonly translated as “New Year Pictures,” refers to a

broad range of popular prints and paintings produced in the many historic woodblockprinting

centers across China. The works are most visible during the Lunar New Year

season, when mass quantities of nianhua circulate through markets and households.

Inexpensive and ephemeral, these are annually renewed on household doorways, walls,

and windows, a widespread act of renewal that coincides with a rich repertoire of ritual

practices tied to the “passing of the year” 􀝖􀭍􀀏 However, the term nianhua also

2

encompasses many temporary and permanent works consumed throughout the year for

seasonal festivals, life-cycle rituals, gift giving, and popular religion.

Making and using nianhua has made a tremendous comeback all across China

since the early 1980s, yet the existing scholarship has characterized it as a tradition that

has disappeared or is on the verge of disappearing. Art historians Wang Shucun 􀺦􀶎􀕨

and Bo Songnian 􀐊􀶾􀭍, the foremost authorities on the topic, have each written a

comprehensive history of Chinese nianhua, which they define as a type of “folk art” 􀫶􀡗

􁁜􀶌 produced in regional woodblock printing centers. The notion of “folk” refers to the

non-official realm, so that “folk art” is distinguished from official art. In both texts, the

authors recount the “golden age” of nianhua in the late nineteenth century and its rapid

decline in the early twentieth century. The decline is attributed to mechanized printing

technologies introduced from the West and a slew of state-led print reforms carried out

by the Republican state in the 1910s and 1920s, and again by the Communist government

during the 1950s and early 1960s.1 For Wang and Bo, the state’s rigorous circumscription

of local printing activities in the 1950s marked “the end of nianhua as a folk custom,” as

it is no longer possible to distinguish between the non-official and official realms.2 If

there were any surviving vestiges of traditional nianhua, the Cultural Revolution (1966-

1976) dealt the final blow, with the official ban on nianhua as a form of “feudal

superstition.” This narrative of nianhua’s spectacular rise and fall from roughly the mid-

1 Wang Shucun 􀺦􀶎􀕨, Zhongguo nianhua shi 􁇏􀝓􀭍􀟂􀵎 [Chinese nianhua history] (Beijing: Beijing

gongyi meishu chubanshe, 2002), and Bo Songnian 􀐊􀶾􀭍, Zhongguo nianhua shi 􁇏􀝓􀭍􀟂􀵎 [Chinese

nianhua history] (Shenyang: Liaoning meishu chubanshe, 1986).

2 Wang, Chinese Nianhua History, 290.

3

nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries is also widely repeated in the Western

scholarship, which builds on the foundational writings by Wang and Bo.3

A key problem here is that the existing scholarship has relied primarily on the

historic nianhua archives collected in the north and east, near the urban centers of Beijing

and Shanghai. Prior to the early twentieth century, there were very few efforts to collect

and preserve nianhua, which were mostly designed for temporary use in a variety of

ritual practices. Early twentieth-century Christian missionary scholars and Sinologists

were among the first to collect large quantities of popular prints and paintings.4 These

pioneering Orientalists brought their own ideological agendas to the task and collected

many works from the street markets of Beijing and Shanghai, where they had access to

the everyday objects of the common people. During the 1950s print reforms, state

supported research activities spurred more collection activities, with many nianhua

entering into state archives around the nation.5 At this time, Wang Shucun and Bo

Songnian established their careers as leading folk art historians based in Beijing and put

together some of the most extensive collections of Chinese nianhua. As both scholars are

3 Key examples that deal specifically with this timeframe include Tanya McIntyre, Chinese New Year

Pictures: The Process of Modernization, 1842-1942, (PhD diss., University of Melbourne, 1997), and

James Flath, The Cult of Happiness: Nianhua, Art, and History in Rural North China (Vancouver:

University of British Columbia Press, 2004).

4 The earliest efforts to collect nianhua include studies by French Sinologist Eduoard Chavannes and his

student V. M. Alekseev, a Russian Sinologist whose research on nianhua have been published in V. M.

Alekseev, The Chinese Gods of Wealth: a lecture delivered at the School of Oriental Studies, University of

London, 26th of March 1926 (London: School of Oriental Studies and The China Society, 1928), and V.M.

Alekseev, Maria Rudova, and L.N Menshikov, Chinese Popular Prints (Aurora Art Publishers, 1988).

These works were soon followed by the writings of missionary scholars interested in printed depictions of

Chinese popular religion, including Henri Dore’s Researches in Chinese Superstition (1914-38), Clarence

Burton Day’s Chinese Peasant Cults (Shanghai, 1940; repr., Taipei: Ch’eng Wen Publishing Co., 1974),

and Anne Goodrich’s Peking Paper Gods: A Look at Home Worship (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1991). The

German-American Sinologist Berthold Laufer also collected a significant number of nianhua during his

1901-1904 China Expedition; these works are now held in the American Museum of Natural History in

New York.

5 For in-depth discussions of the Communist’s 1950s print reform activities see Chang-tai Hung,

“Repainting China: New Year Prints (Nianhua) and Peasant Resistance in the Early Years of the People's

Republic,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42, no.4 (2000): 779-810.

4

based in northern China, their nianhua collections and writings also tend to reflect the

historical developments of that region.

Thus far, no in-depth studies have been conducted on the rapid recovery of the

nianhua industry after the Cultural Revolution, although there have been official

campaigns to “revive” and “rescue” nianhua as part of China’s “folk art heritage”􀫶􀡗􁁜

􀶌􁁌􀓁􀀏 Relaxed policies around cultural production coupled with the state-led revival of

the industry has spurred the revitalization of several well-known nianhua centers in

China, including Mianzhu in Sichuan, Yangliuqing near Tianjin, Wuqiang in Shandong,

and Zhuxianzhen in Henan.6 While many have dismissed these developments as another

round of state restrictions tied to the reinvention of tradition, I will argue that the situation