Wuqiang New Year Wood-block Prints 武强木版年画

时间：2006年
Time: 2006
类别：民间美术
Category: Folk Arts
地区：河北
Region: Hebei Province
编号：Ⅶ—2
Ref. No.: Ⅶ-2
申报地区或单位：河北省武强县
Nominating unit[s]: Wuqiang county, Hebei Province
武强县是著名的民间年画之乡，地处冀中平原，位于河北省东南部，属衡水市管辖。武强木版年画具有浓郁的乡土气息和地方特色，其丰富的内容是中国民间社会生活的“百科全书”。
Wuqiang County, a place renowned for its New Year wood-block prints, is under the governance of Hengshui Municipality in the southeast of Hebei Province on the Jizhong Plain. Full of the flavor of countryside and rife with local elements, the Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints are rich in content and are reflective of the encyclopedic social life in China.
据现存资料考证，武强木版年画产生于宋末元初，明、清两代最为鼎盛。后因地理交通状况的变化而逐渐衰微，民国时期的战乱导致武强木版年画业迅速萎缩，仅有四十余家画坊开门经营。20世纪40年代初，武强木版年画艺人与晋察冀边区的美术工作者一同创办“冀中年画研究社”，1947年又在此基础上成立了“石家庄大众美术社”，武强木版年画由此得以复兴并有所创新。1949年后，武强县40家画业作坊合并为武强画厂。1985年，武强木版年画博物馆建立。1993年，武强县被文化部命名为“中国木版年画之乡”。
According to the historical records, Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints originated in late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, and became popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. With changes in transportation conditions, Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints had gradually become less popular, and due to the social turmoil caused by war, their production quickly tipped into recession during the KMT period, with only some forty workshops struggling to survive. In the early 1940s, the Central Hebei Society of New Year wood-block Prints were founded by the artisans of Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints and the local artists in Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Area. It was on this basis that the Shijiazhuang Society of Public Fine Art was built in 1947, and Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints regained their vitality and certain innovations were realized. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, the forty workshops were merged into a new studio named the “Wuqiang Art Factory”. In 1985, the Wuqiang Museum of New Year wood-block Prints was established. In 1993, Wuqiang County was named “The hometown of China New Year wood-block Prints” by the Ministry of Culture.
武强木版年画制作采用传统手工木版套印而成。在题材方面，既有传统的人物、山水、花鸟，亦有当代现实生活及时事新闻，其中对传统美德的宣扬表现得尤为突出。武强木版年画有门画、灶画、中堂、对联、窗花、灯方、斗方、条屏、历画、炕围画等几十种形式，充分表达了下层平民百姓的思想感情，它在辞旧迎新的欢乐气氛中散入千家万户，吉利红火，深受广大群众喜爱。
Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints are a kind of handicraft that is applied using the traditional chromatic wood-block printing technology. In terms of the subjects, a variety of traditional images are seleced, such as figure painting, landscape painting, bird-and-flower painting, as well as paintings reflecting the real life in modern days and current news. Those with subjects that favor Chinese traditional virtues are particularly popular among the people. This includes door-god pictures, kitchen-god pictures, central hanging scrolls, couplets, window decorating pictures, lamp decorating pictures, dou fang(sheets about one foot square with inscriptions for pasting on wall), hanging scrolls, wall calendar pictures and Kang (heatable brick bed) side paintings, fully expressing the best wishes of the laboring people. The local people put up the Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints in their house before the eve of Chinese New Year to express their wishes for a more prosperous and auspicious new year.
随着社会的变迁和人们生活观念的转变，目前武强木版年画已面临着人去艺绝的严峻形势，抢救、保护工作迫在眉睫。
With the social changes and the changes in people’s lifestyle, Wuqiang New Year wood-block prints now face distinct threat caused by brain-drain, and there are ongoing calls for revivification of the art and protective measures from the government.