Weifang New Year Pictures of Shandong

Weifang, the kite capital, is also famous throughout the country for its New Year Picture block-prints. The most well known, with a long history of more than 300 years, were made in Yangjiabu. Hundreds of New Year Picture workshops were found all over the town at the end of 19th century. In early times, artisans here adopted half-printed and half-drawn skills to make New Year Pictures, influenced by the styles of Yangliuqing pictures. Later on, they compared and gathered experience from Taohuawu pictures of Suzhou, and eventually formed their own unique style.

Nowadays, New Year Pictures made in Weifang possess both the robustness of the northern schools and the delicateness of the southern schools, alongside distinctive local features. The mainstream method of Weifang New Year Pictures is block printing, which possesses vivid models and regular lines, in addition to stressing primary colors. It covers extensive subjects, including daily life, auspicious pictures, drama stories and folklore, etc.