A New Year picture is a popular Banhua in China. It is a form of colored woodblock print, used for decoration and the performance of rituals during the Chinese New Year Holiday. In the 19th and 20th centuries some printers began to use the genre to depict current events.
'Honourable Offspring after Another'. Yangliuqing New Year Picture. Kangxi Period (1661-1722). National Art Museum of China
New Year picture of the Qing dynasty
New Year picture. Unknown. 1900.
New Year picture. Three Deities colored woodblock print. 1900s
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is created by carving a wooden block to leave only some areas and lines at the original level; it is these that are inked and show in the print, in a relief printing process. Carving the blocks is skilled and laborious work, but a large number of impressions can then be printed.
The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, the world's earliest printed text containing a date of production, AD 868 (British Library)
A fragment of a dharani print in Sanskrit and Chinese, c. 650–670, Tang dynasty
Replica of The Great Dharani Sutra, the oldest printed text in Korea, c. 704-751
The Hyakumantō Darani, the oldest printed text in Japan, c. 770
