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THE ORIGIN OF PRINTMAKING ART

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The most commonly painted figures in the wooden block New Year's prints from ZhuXianZhen are door gods, with the main ones being Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong, two military generals. They appear in various styles such as holding a whip while walking, riding a horse with a whip, turning back on a horse with a whip, embracing a whip, holding a knife upright, and wearing a cloak, among 20 or more styles. In addition, there are various literary and martial door gods. Literary door gods include Five Sons, Nine Lotus Lamps, and Fu Lu Shou, while martial door gods are often loyal and righteous characters from plays and various types of heroes. Different people's doors often have different door gods: doors of married couples with children may have "Heavenly Immortals Sending Children," "Continuously Giving Birth to Valuable Children," or "Three Mothers Teaching Children," middle-aged people's doors may have "Increasing Official Rank and Attaining Prosperity" or "Step by Step Lotus Living," elderly people's doors may have "Pine and Crane Prolonging Life" or symbols of longevity, and doors of young people's rooms may have "Five Sons Competing for the Top" or "Liu Hai Playing with Golden Toads."

Life-themed New Year's prints include paper charts for adults to play games (similar to Chinese checkers), depicting characters such as white-collar workers, scholars, candidates for the imperial examinations, successful examinees, and chief ministers, and showing them advancing in official rank and nobility, hence they are called "Promotion Charts." There are also game charts with spiral-shaped upgrades, featuring treasures, jewels, chopping wood, and keys, which are specifically for children to play, commonly known as "Chasing Small Charts." Other types of prints include dragon-phoenix invitations used for matchmaking (exchanging small notes), decorative paper for beautifying the environment, paper fans for the Dragon Boat Festival, and "Moonlight Bodhisattva" for worshiping the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

There are also varieties specifically used for "society fire", with many characters and large scenes, mostly open and full size. The decorative papers "table skirts" used to cover up miscellaneous objects and decorate the environment have a wide variety of varieties, many of which have been lost.

Family altar paintings are images of deceased ancestors from three generations, also known as ancestral god seats, used in simple ancestor worship places for poor and humble peasant families. The images are divided into three layers, with the top layer depicting great-grandparents and grandparents; the middle layer depicting parents; and the bottom layer depicting celestial officials, boys, girls, money trees, treasure bowls, spears, helmets, gold ingots, and jewels, generally with the words "family happiness and celebration of the new year". They are used to pray for the protection and blessings of ancestors in heaven for the prosperity and well-being of the family, and to encourage future generations to work hard and honor their ancestors. They are often placed in the center of the main room of the house, hence the name "family altar", and come in many different sizes and styles.