Chinese New Year Prints
Nianhua, or “New Year Pictures,” are essential decorations for the Chinese New Year Festival, the most joyous occasion in the Chinese calendar.
Traditionally, peasants carved these auspicious images into woodblocks and printed festive designs to adorn homes and public places all over China. These images became especially popular in the Ming (1368-1644 CE) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911 CE), but they feature timeless symbols of good fortune such as chubby babies, folk heroes, and symbolic animals. Dragons and images of guardian deities also serve to ward off bad luck and misfortune. These thrilling pieces of folk art not only illustrate a broad array of symbols featured in Chinese art, but they also represent a form of cultural expression shared and understood by elite scholars and illiterate masses alike.
This presentation shares the stories behind such images and explains how to decode the complex symbolism in Chinese art. Every third Saturday of the month, explore intriguing aspects of Chinese arts, culture, and history in a series of lectures with Senior Coordinator of Education and Exhibits Alex Stewart. Nine years preparing exhibits and education programs at SDCHM and seven years of graduate research in sociocultural anthropology at UCSD has given Mr. Stewart a wide range of expertise, and now he is eager to share this with the public. Many of these presentations feature original research on museum artifacts or firsthand ethnographic accounts from China. Reservations required: 619-338-9888 or [email protected].