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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 December 2000

Chang-Tai Hung
Chang-Tai Hung*
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
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Extract

On November 26, 1949, less than two months after the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Ministry of Culture issued a directive to artists and writers about the importance and possible use in a new era of New Year prints (nianhua), a simple and inexpensive Chinese folk medium used to decorate homes in celebration of the New Year.

Type
Art Work
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , October 2000 , pp. 770 - 810
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 2000

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References

Notes

1. “Zhongyang renmin zhengfu wenhuabu guanyu kaizhan xin nianhua gongzuo de zhishi” [Instructions on How to Launch the Work of the New New Year Prints, the Ministry of Culture, the Central People's Government], Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 27 November 1949, 4; see also Guangming ribao [Enlightenment Daily], 27 November 1949, 4.

2. Lenin developed this idea in his influential work What Is To Be Done? Although Mao Zedong placed greater emphasis on the spontaneity and voluntarism of the lower classes, he never resolved the contradiction between the party's leadership role and the voluntarism of the people.

3. See Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 13.

4. See Chang-tai Hung, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), chap. 6, “Popular Culture in the Communist Areas.” See also David Holm, Art and Ideology in Revolutionary China (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), section 2, “Yangge: A New Model Genre.”

5. Mao Tse-tung [Mao Zedong], “Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 4 (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1969), 363.

6. However, some prints (such as those of Yangliuqing), influenced by academic paintings of the Song and Ming dynasties, are intricate in layout and known for their elegant hand-painted images.

7. For a brief history of nianhua, see Bo Songnian, Zhongguo nianhuashi [History of Chinese New Year Prints] (Shenyang: Liaoning meishu chubanshe, 1986), 1–5. For an excellent introduction in English, see Po Sung-nien [Bo Songnian] and David Johnson, Domesticated Deities and Auspicious Emblems: The Iconography of Everyday Life in Village China (Berkeley: Publications of the Chinese Popular Culture Project; The IEAS Publications, 1992), especially 9-18, 105.

8. Meng Yuanlao of the Song wrote in his Dongjing menghua lu [Recollections of the Eastern Capital] that when the New Year drew near, the streets of the capital Bianliang (present-day Kaifeng) were filled with folk prints, especially pictures of door guardians and Zhong Kui (the demon exorcist). See Meng, Dongjing menghua lu zhu [Recollections of the Eastern Capital], annotated by Deng Zhicheng (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), vol. 10, 249, 253.

9. For example, Yangliuqing was known for its meticulous fine-line printing and Yangjiabu for its lively rustic patterns.

10. Yangjiabu cunzhi [History of the Village of Yangjiabu], ed. Shandongsheng Weifangshi Hantingqu Yangjiabu cunzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui [The Editorial Committee of the History of Yangjiabu Village, Hanting District, Weifang City, Shandong Province] (Ji’nan: Qilu shushe, 1993), 381–93.

11. Foreign scholars also showed interest in collecting New Year prints. Russian collectors— for example, Vasily Vasilyev and Vasily Kovalevsky—assembled nianhua in the 1830s and 1840s. In the late nineteenth century Vladimir Komarov also brought many prints from China. See Chinese Popular Prints, selection and text by Maria Rudova, ed. Lev Menshikov, trans. Viacheslav Sobolev (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1988), See also Sulian cang Zhongguo minjian nianhua zhenpinji [A Collection of New Year Print Treasure in the Soviet Union] (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1990; Leningrad: Aurora, 1990).

12. Ye Youxin, “Weixian minjian muban nianhua de chuantong tezheng” [Traditional Characteristics of Weixian's Folk New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 12 (15 December 1954): 18–20; quoted from p. 18. The nianhua prints became a big business in Ming- Qing China. In mid-Qing period, the town of Mianzhu in Sichuan had more than three hundred workshops engaged in making the New Year prints, producing more than ten million copies each year. See Gao Wen, Hou Shiwu, and Ning Zhiqi, eds., Mianzhu nianhua [Mianzhu's New Year Prints] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1990), 4. Seasonal peddlers acquired prints from major centers and then distributed them to remote village corners, often accompanied by pitch songs. See Wang Shucun, Zhongguo minjian nianhua [Chinese Folk New Year Prints] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1995), 124– 28. Sales of the prints plummeted during the Republican era because many print-producing centers were ruined by wars and social upheavals. The Communists revived the nianhua prints after seizing power in 1949.

13. Information on Lu Xun's interest in woodblock prints abounds. See, for example, Liu Xian, “Lu Xun geiyu de jiaoyi—Guanyu Zhuxianzhen muban nianhua” [Lu Xun's Teaching: On Zhuxianzhen's Woodblock New Year Prints], Banhua yishu [Print Art] 20 (October 1986): 8–9.

14. For the Communists’ use of nianhua prints in the Yan’an days, see Chang-tai Hung, “Two Images of Socialism: Woodcuts in Chinese Communist Politics,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39 (January 1997): 34–60.

15. Ibid.

16. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: World Publishing Company, 1958), especially chap. 13, “Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government.”

17. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971).

18. See Li Xiqin, ed., Meishu cilin: banhua yishu juan [The Dictionary of Art: Prints] (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), 583.

19. Derk Bodde, a Fulbright Fellow living in Beijing during the Communist takeover in 1949, attended the exhibition in Central Park. He wrote that among the pieces put on display were the less sophisticated works prepared by Communist propagandists for use among the peasants. There were colored lantern slides illustrating the prowess of the Liberation Army or its cooperation with the people; … colored New Year pictures (traditionally posted in peasant homes at [the] Chinese New Year) in which the traditional God of Wealth and the Eight Immortals are replaced by such up-to-date themes as peasants working together in the field[s] or participating in a ‘bean election’ (voting for village officials by casting beans into jars set beneath the names and pictures of candidates). See Bodde, Peking Diary: A Year of Revolution (New York: Henry Schuman, 1950), 228; see also 182, 227.

20. For a comprehensive discussion of the art policy in the early years of the People’s Republic, see Julia F. Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949–1979 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), especially chap. 2, 58–64. See also Ellen Johnston Laing, The Winking Owl: Art in the People's Republic of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

21. See, for example, Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 25 November 1949, 4; 27 November 1949, 4; 23 December 1949 and 31 December 1949, passim.

22. See, for example, a special issue of new New Year prints published a few days before the Chinese Lunar New Year in Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 11 February 1950, 5. Similar pages were devoted to the prints in 1951, see Renmin ribao, 3 January 1951, 5.

23. For example, Renmin meishu [People's Art], the flagship journal of the Association of All-China Artists (Zhonghua quanguo meishu gongzuozhe xiehui), published a special issue on nianhua in April 1950. See Renmin meishu 2 (1 April 1950).

24. Meishu [Art] 3 (15 March 1956): 37. Other prominent artists, including painter Li Keran and cartoonist Zhang Ding, also expressed their enthusiasm about the new art. See idem, and 8 (15 August 1954): 44–5.

25. Cheng Yanqiu and Du Yingtao, “Hanting de nianhua” [Hanting's New Year Prints], Minjian wenyi jikan [On Folk Literature and Art], 2 (15 May 1951): 29–33.

26. On the reform of folk artists, see Xie Changyi, “Xiang minjian nianhua xuexi” [Learn from Folk New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 2 (15 February 1960): 36–8; and Gao Wen, Hou Shiwu, Ning Zhiqi, eds., Mianzhu nianhua, 4. Well-known artists were singled out for praise. On Yang Wendong, see Yangjiabu cunzhi, 388–9. See also Zhang Dianying, Yangjiabu muban nianhua [Yangjiabu's Woodblock New Year Prints] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1990), 162–4. Other folk artists, such as Yangliuqing's Zhang Xingze, were praised for their skills. See Wang Shucun, “Jiwei zhuming de minjian gongyi meishu yiren jieshao” [An Introduction to Some Noted Folk Handicraft Artists], Meishu [Art] 12 (15 December 1957): 48–9.

27. A national nianhua exhibition, for instance, was held in Beijing's Central Park from February 17 to 23 to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year. See Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 21 February 1950, 3. Conferences on nianhua were held in provinces. See Meishu [Art] 6 (15 June 1958): 28, 35.

28. The Ministry of Culture announced the results of its first national new New Year prints competition in April 1950. Prizes were given to a total of twenty-five artists, divided into three categories. See Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 16 April 1950, 4.

29. National competitions were held in subsequent years, such as 1951 and 1952. They were again sponsored by the Ministry of Culture. See the announcement of Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun, 1896–1981), the Minister of Culture, in Renmin ribao [People’s Daily], 5 September 1952, 3. Many award-winning prints were later issued in book form for wider circulation. See, for example, Nianhua xuanbian, 1949–1959 [Selected New Year Prints, 1949–1959], ed. Renmin meishu chubanshe [People's Art Publishing House] (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1961), and Shandong huojiang nianhua xuanji [Selected Prize-winning New Year Prints from Shandong] (N.p.: Shandong meishu chubanshe, 1992).

30. See Meishu [Art] 2 (25 March 1978): 7. Zhou's visit was captured in a print by Zhang Fulong, entitled Spring Willow (Chunfeng yangliu), Meishu 4 (25 July 1978): 17, 35.

31. See the discussion in James von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals, 1917–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

32. Hung, War and Popular Culture, chap. 6.

33. See Donald E. MacInnis, ed., Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China (New York: Macmillan, 1972).

34. Wang Zhaowen, “Guanyu xuexi jiu nianhua xingshi” [On Learning from the Form of Old New Year Prints], Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 19 March 1950, 5.

35. Wang Yaping, “Cong jiu nianhua dao xin nianhua” [From the Old New Year Prints to the New New Year Prints], Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 26 April 1949, 4.

36. See Li Qun et al., “Guanyu xin de nianhua liyong shenxiang geshi wenti” [Questions on the Use of Images of Deities in the New New Year Prints], Jiefang ribao [Liberation Daily], 12 April 1945, 4.

37. The statement, “Zhongyang renmin zhengfu wenhuabu, Chuban zongshu guanyu jiaqiang nianhua gongzuo de zhishi” [Instructions on How to Strengthen the Task of the New Year Prints, the Ministry of Culture and the Publication Bureau, the Central People’s Government], was jointly issued by Shen Yanbing, the Minister of Culture, and Hu Yuzhi (1896–1986), the publication bureau chief. See Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 26 October 1951, 3.

38. For example, the East China Military Administrative Council issued a similar statement on 24 August 1952, and Shandong Province followed suit in November1953. See Huadong junzheng weiyuanhui wenhuabu yishu shiye guanlichu [The Art Office of the Bureau of Ministry, East China Military Administrative Council], “Dui Shandong Weibeixian jiu nianhua gaige de yijian” [On the Reform of Old New Year Prints in Weibei County, Shandong Province] (24 August 1952), in Zhang Dianying, Yangjiabu muban nianhua, 183–6. For the Shandong statement, see Shandongsheng renmin zhengfu wenhua shiye guanliju [The Cultural Management Bureau, Shandong People’s Government], “Guanyu ruhe duidai ‘zaoma’ de yijian” [On How to Deal with the Stove God Print], issued on 12 November 1953; mimeographed document.

39. Besides major nianhua areas such as Shandong's Yangjiabu, reforms were conducted in other centers such as Zhuxianzhen, Henan Province, and Fengxiang, Shaanxi Province. See Liu Tiehua, “Muban shuiyin nianhua fayuandi Zhuxianzhen diaocha shiliao” [Historical Materials on the Investigation of the Place of Origin of the Watercolor Woodblock New Year Prints in Zhuxianzhen], Meishujia [Artist] 17 (1 December 1980): 37–43; Tai Yi, “Fengxiang muban nianhua jianwenji” [Notes on Fengxiang Woodblock New Year Prints], Meishu yanjiu [Art Research] 2 (15 May 1985): 72–5.

40. See Weixian muban nianhua yanjiusuo [The New Year Prints Research Institute of Weixian], “Weixian muban nianhua shiliao shiling” [Notes on the History of Weixian’s Woodblock New Year Prints], Meishu yanjiu [Art Research] 2 (15 May 1984): 17–22, 28; Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu [Studies on Weifang's New Year Prints] (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1991), 7, 25, 143; and Zhang Dianying, Yangjiabu muban nianhua, 29–30. Interviews with Xie Changyi, 8 and 9 June 1997, Ji’nan.

41. Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu, 25.

42. Ibid., 53.

43. For the discussion of the Stove God, I am indebted to Bo Songnian, Zhongguo zaojun shenma [China's Stove God and Paper Horses] (Taibei: Bohaitang wenhua shiye youxian gongsi, 1993), 13–31. See also Po Sung-nien and David Johnson, Domesticated Deities and Auspicious Emblems, 23–58.

44. Arthur H. Smith, Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1899), 199.

45. Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu, 26.

46. Ibid., 143.

47. Shandongsheng renmin zhengfu wenhua shiye guanliju, “Guanyu ruhe duidai ‘zaoma’ de yijian.”

48. Yangjiabu nianhua [Yangjiabu's New Year Prints], eds. Shandongsheng Weifangshi bowuguan and Yangjiabu muban nianhua yanjiusuo [The Museum of the City of Weifang, Shandong Province, and The Institute of Yangjiabu Woodblock New Year Print] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1990), Plate 134. The print was originally made in the 1950s and was reissued in 1985. See “Illustrations,” 14, 51.

49. Wang Jindong, “Henansheng muke nianhua diaocha xiaoji” [A Brief Report on the Investigation of the New Year Prints in Henan Province], Meishu yanjiu [Art Research] 2 (15 May 1984): 25. Other key centers, such as Yangjiabu, Taohuawu, and Mianzhu, also produced these types of prints in abundance. See Zhang Dianying, Yangjiabu muban nianhua, 35–62. Zhang Ding, “Taohuawu nianhua” [Taohuawu's New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 8 (15 August 1954): 44–5. Gao Wen, Hou Shiwu, Ning Zhiqi, eds., Mianzhu nianhua, 5–6.

50. Bo Songnian, Chinese New Year Pictures (Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1995), Plates 1 and 2.

51. Bo Songnian, Zhongguo nianhuashi, 2.

52. Wang Shucun, Men yu menshen [Doors and Door Gods] (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 1994), 180–202.

53. See, for example, Nianhua xuanbian, 1949–1959, Plates 2, 4, 9, and 11.

54. It was later discovered that many production figures from Dazhai were inflated and incorrectly reported.

55. Yangjiabu cunzhi, 416. The print also had an abbreviated title, Xue wenhua [Learning how to read]. See Meishu [Art] 3 (15 March 1956): 36.

56. The print was originally designed in the mid-1950s by the New Year Print Production Team in Weifang City, near Yangjiabu. It was repeatedly singled out for praise. See Mu Xun, “Tan menhua, lihua chuangzuo” [On the Production of Door God and Calendar Prints], Meishu [Art] 1 (15 January 1956): 12; Meishu 3 (15 March 1956): illustration; Meishu 6 (15 June 1958): 35.

57. This image reflects the official discourse of sexuality in the People's Republic in the 1950s, which, as Harriet Evans has argued, was “premised on a naturalized and hierarchical view of gender relations,” one that assumed a biological difference between female and male and implied, among other things, that women are passive and weak whereas men are active and strong. See Evans, Women and Sexuality in China: Female Sexuality and Gender Since 1949 (New York: Continuum, 1997), 6.

58. A similar approach was used ingeniously by the woodcut artist Gu Yuan during the Yan’an years. In his work, Gu depicted peaceful everyday scenes but full of promise under the Communist rule. See Hung, “Two Images of Socialism.”

59. Yiding, “Dui ‘Tianguan cifu’ de yijian” [My Views on God's Blessings], Meishu [Art] 6 (15 June 1958): 32. See also Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu, 14.

60. See Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 45, 61–2; Lynne Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 38–44.

61. Richard Stites, Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 53–4.

62. Stephen White, The Bolshevik Poster (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 6–7. See the discussion of the influence of Russian traditional art on Soviet artists in Stites, Russian Popular Culture, 53–4.

63. The Money Tree was a favorite print in nianhua. Besides the Yangjiabu example shown in Plate 9, Yangliuqing and Mianzhu also produced their respective versions. See Wang Shucun, ed., Zhongguo minjian nianhuashi tulu [A Pictorial History of Chinese Folk New Year Prints] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1991), vol. 1, 70; vol. 2, 466.

64. Xie Changyi, “Yaoqianshu de fazhan he yanbian” [The Development and Evolution of The Money Tree], Gugong wenwu yuekan [The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art] 11 (February 1994): 124.

65. Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu, 35.

66. Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 16 April 1950, 4.

67. Cai Ruohong, “Lun xin nianhua chuangzuo zhong jige zhuyao de wenti” [On Several Key Questions Related to the Producing of New New Year Prints], Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 6 October 1951, 3.

68. See Beatrice Farnsworth, “Village Women Experience the Revolution,” in Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites, eds., Bolshevik Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 239.

69. See Nianhua xuanbian, 1949–1959, Plate 4. The print won second prize in the 1951–52 national nianhua competition. See Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 5 September 1952, 3. Besides Mao, other Communist leaders such as Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping also figured prominently in the new prints.

70. Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 5 September 1952, 3. The print was well received. See, for example, He Rong, “Qunyinghui shang de Zhao Guilan” [Zhao Guilan at the Heroes’ Reception], Meishu [Art] 2 (15 February 1960): 18.

71. Renmin ribao [People's Daily], 16 April 1950, 4.

72. Quoted in Rogert Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 27.

73. See, for example, Huadong junzheng weiyuanhui wenhuabu yishu shiye guanlichu, “Dui Shandong Weibeixian jiu nianhua gaige de yijian” (24 August 1952), 183– 6. Shandongsheng renmin zhengfu wenhua shiye guanliju [The Cultural Management Bureau, Shandong People's Government], “Wei guanche nianhua gaike gongzuo banfa” [Ways to Implement the New Year Print Reform], issued on 2 January 1953; mimeographed document. See also “Yijiuwuernian Shandongsheng nianhua gaike gongzuodui gongzuo zongjie” [A Summary of the Work Done by the Shandong New Year Print Reform Team in 1952], in Yangjiabu cunzhi, 401–15.

74. See, for example, Meishu [Art] 6 (15 June 1958): 31.

75. Wang Shucun, Zhongguo minjian nianhuashi lunji [Essays on the History of the Chinese Folk New Year Prints] (Tianjin: Tianjin Yangliuqing huashe, 1991), 243.

76. Quoted from Ye Wenxi, “Shitan nianhua de zuoyong he tedian” [A Preliminary Investigation into the Functions and Characteristics of the New Year Print], Meishu [Art] 2 (25 March 1978): 42.

77. Zhang Zhi, “Qunzhong huanying muban nianhua” [The Masses Welcome Woodblock New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 12 (15 December 1956): 46.

78. Feng Zhen, “Nianhua diaochaji” [An Investigation of New Year Prints], Meishu yanjiu [Art Research] 4 (15 November 1980): 58.

79. Herbert Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1971), 67–9, 128–9; and Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 177–200.

80. Bourdieu, Distinction, 34–41.

81. Feng Zhen, “Nianhua diaochaji.”

82. Yu Feian, Zhongguohua yanse de yanjiu [Colors in Chinese Paintings] (Beijing: Zhaohua meishu chubanshe, 1955), 36. Translated by Jerome Silbergeld and Amy McNair as Chinese Painting Colors: Studies of Their Preparation and Application in Traditional and Modern Times (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 43, with modifications.

83. Ibid.

84. Ye Youxin, “Weixian minjian muban nianhua de chuantong tezheng,” 20.

85. Wenhua, “Tan nianhua de chuangzuo ji chuban wenti” [On the Creation and Production of the New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 12 (15 December 1956): 52.

86. See the discussion in Lin Chen, “Nianhua de secai” [Color in the New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 12 (15 December 1956): 51–2.

87. Quoted in Li Qun, “Lun nianhua de xingshi wenti” [On the Question of Form of the New Year Print], Meishu [Art] 3 (15 March 1956): 14. See also Ye Youxin, “Weixian minjian muban nianhua de chuantong tezheng,” 20.

88. Quoted in Lin Chen, “Nianhua de secai,” 51.

89. Quoted in Ye Youxin, “Fandui baoshoude kandai qunzhong dui nianhua de yaoqiu” [Opposition to Hold a Conservative View about the Popular Demand for the New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 1 (15 January 1956): 10.

90. Quoted in Lin Chen, “Nianhua de secai,” 51.

91. Mao Zaisheng, “Qunzhong xi’ai minjian nianhua de jige yuanyin” [Several Reasons Why People Like Folk New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] (15 June 1958): 31.

92. Li Qun, “Nianhua de xingshi wenti,” 14.

93. Mu Xun, “Tan menhua, lihua chuangzuo,” 11.

94. Yu Feng, “Xiang minjian nianhua xuexi” [Learn from Folk New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 3 (15 March 1956): 10.

95. Mu Xun, “Tan menhua, lihua chuangzuo,” 11.

96. Cao Zuorui, “Tantan sishanping nianhua de peici” [On the Language Used in the Four Hanging Scroll Set of New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 12 (15 December 1956): 51.

97. Yangjiabu cunzhi, 409.

98. Ye Youxin, “Weixian minjian muban nianhua de chuantong tezheng,” 20.

99. Ibid.

100. Mu Xun, “Tan manhua, lihua chaungzuo,” 11.

101. For an account of this shift in art policy, see Julia Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, chap. 3, “From Popularization to Specialization.”

102. Bo Songnian and Wang Shucun, “Shinianlai woguo xin nianhua de fazhan he chengjiu” [The Development and Achievement of the New New Year Prints in the Last Ten Years], Meishu yanjiu [Art Research] 2 (15 May 1959): 12–7, esp. 14.

103. Ibid.

104. C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), especially chap. 4, “Communal Aspects of Popular Cults.” See also Arthur Wolf, ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974).

105. For a succinct discussion of cultural life, especially life-cycle rituals and festivals, in late imperial China, see Susan Naquin and Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), chap. 3, “Cultural Life.”

106. See the discussion in Moshe Lewin, “Popular Religion in Twentieth-Century Russia,” in Ben Eklof and Stephen Frank, eds., The World of the Russian Peasant: Post- Emancipation Culture and Society (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 158.

107. Wang Shucun, Paper Joss: Deity Worship Through Folk Prints (Beijing: New World Press, 1992), 20, Plate 3.

108. Xie Changyi, “Women shi zenyang jicheng he fazhan minjian nianhua chuantong de” [On How We Inherited and Developed the Tradition of Folk New Year Prints], Meishu [Art] 1 (25 January 1978): 43.

109. Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu, 144.

110. Ye Youxin, “Fandui baoshoude kandai qunzhong dui nianhua de yaoqiu,” 10.

111. Ye Wenxi, “Shitan nianhua de zuoyong he tedian,” 42.

112. Xie Changyi, “Women shi zenyang jicheng he fazhan minjian nianhua chuantong de,” 44. See also Zheng Jinlan et al., eds., Weifang nianhua yanjiu, 143.

113. Huadong junzheng weiyuanhui wenhuabu yishu shiye guanlichu, “Dui Shandong Weibeixian jiu nianhua gaige de yijian,” 183.

114. Xu Ling, “Nianhua gongzuozhong cunzai de zhuyao wenti” [The Key Problems of the New Year Print Campaign], Meishu [Art] 4 (15 April 1958): 6–9.

115. Wu Dong, “Xin nianhua ying liqiu bode nongmin huanxin” [The New New Year Prints Should Make Every Effort to Win the Peasants’ Hearts], Meishu [Art] 9 (20 September 1982): 19.

116. Wang Shucun, “Xianhua menshen” [Notes on Door Gods], Meishu shilun congkan [Essays on the History of Art] 2 (August 1983): 220.

117. See Shanghai nianhua, 1991 [Shanghai's New Year Prints, 1991], vol. 4 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, n.d.), 294–5. For the most recent ones, see Shanghai yishu tupian, 1996 [Shanghai's Art Photographs, 1996] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe meishu tupianbu, 1996), 31–2; Shanghai yishu tupian, 1997 [Shanghai’s Art Photographs, 1997] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe meishu tupianbu, 1997), 35–6.

118. Among them, the strong challenge of calendar posters (Yuefenpai), which were prints that originated in Shanghai and were generally graced by pictures of beautiful women. For a brief history of calendar posters, see Chinese Women and Modernity: Calendar Posters of the 1910s–1930s, compiled by Ng Chun Bong et al. (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1996). For calendar posters in the new nianhua style, see Li Mubai and Jin Xuechen, Li Mubai Jin Xuechen nianhua xuan [Selected New Year Prints of Li Mubai and Jin Xuechen] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1985).

119. Barrington Moore Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965); Hobsbawm, Bandits (New York: Delacorte Press, 1969); Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1969); and James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985) and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

120. Some scholars, such as Eugene Genovese, question the theory of “everyday forms of resistance” as a form of dissent, a theory proposed most notably by James Scott, for such resistance does not challenge the system. Scott takes a broader view, arguing that resistance includes an act by a member of the subordinate class to deny the claims made by the superior class. This summary owes much to Allen Isaacman, “Peasants and Rural Social Protest in Africa,” in Frederick Cooper et al., Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 226–7.

121. Quoted in Jim Sharpe, “History from Below,” in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 25.

122. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), xi, and chap. 3.

123. See Stites, Russian Popular Culture.

124. Samuel L. Popkin, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 31. Refuting the theory of moral economy put forth by James Scott and Eric Wolf, Popkin argues that a “rational” peasant acts to achieve long-term, personal gain, not community stability.

125. For a recent discussion of consumerism in China, see Li Conghua, China: The Consumer Revolution (New York: John Wiley, 1997).

126. See, for example, I Love My Great Motherland (Wo ai weida de zuguo), in Shanghai yishu tupian, 1997 [Shanghai's Art Photographs, 1997] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe meishu tupianbu, 1997), 2.

127. Ellen Johnston Laing, “The Persistence of Propriety in the 1980s,” in Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz, eds., Unofficial China: Popular Culture and Thought in the People's Republic (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 156–71.