Taohuawu is located under the northern city of Suzhou Changmen, and it has been a scenic place in Suzhou since ancient times. Tang Bohu, a romantic genius in the Ming Dynasty, once built a house here and called it "Peach Blossom Temple". He also wrote a poem "Song of Peach Blossom Temple", in which he wrote:
Peach Blossom Temple in Taohuawu, Peach Blossom Fairy in Peach Blossom Temple, Peach Blossom Fairy race peach trees, and exchanged flower branches for drinks. When you wake up, you only sit in front of the flowers, and when you are drunk, you come to sleep under the flowers. Before and after flowers, day after day, drunkenness wakes up year after year. ......
From then on, Taohuawu gradually became famous, and later, after Tang Bohu's death, his cemetery was built here.
In the Qing Dynasty, the local cemetery was restored several times, and thousands of peach trees were planted in front of and behind the ancestral graves in Tang Bohu. Every spring, when peach blossoms were in full bloom, literati gathered and drank and wrote poems, making Taohuawu a scenic spot at that time.
Later, with the economic development of Suzhou city, many craft workshops were concentrated in Changmen area, among which the New Year picture shop was the most. The folk woodblock New Year pictures produced here make Taohuawu famous all over the world.
Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures are welcomed by the world for their rich themes, elegant pictures and delicate colors. Together with Yangliuqing Woodblock New Year pictures in Tianjin and Weifang Woodblock New Year pictures in Shandong, they became the representatives of Chinese folk woodblock New Year pictures in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Taohuawu New Year pictures originated from the engraving printing technology in Song Dynasty, and evolved from Xiu Xiang pictures, and developed into a folk art school in Ming Dynasty, forming a unique style.
In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the woodblock New Year pictures in Taohuawu, Suzhou flourished. At that time, there were about 4 or 5 painting shops, most of which were located in Fengqiao, Shantang Street, Tiger Hill and the area from Taohuawu to Baoen Temple Tower in Changmen. The Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures produced by Taohuawu are more than one million, which are not only sold to all parts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Shandong, Henan and Northeast provinces, but also exported to Nanyang and other places with merchant ships.
Moreover, the names of Suzhou New Year Picture Shop at that time have remained on the screen ever since, such as Zhang Xingju, Zhang Wenju, Wei Hongtai, Lu Yunlin, Lu Fushun, Mo Xiangzhai, Chunyuan, Ji Xiangji, and Wang Rongxing, Chen Tongsheng, Wu Jinzeng, Wu Taiyuan, Hong Yunge, etc. in the earlier period.
The painters of Taohuawu signed their names on the screen. In the early stage, there were Taowu master, Taoxi master, Mo prodigal son, Guilaixuan master, Bao Huaxuan person, Mo Linju, Xing Taozi, etc., and in the later stage, there were Taoist Songshan, Wu Youru, Zhou Mengjiao, Jin Chanxiang and Fu Genxin.
Taohuawu New Year pictures are printed with woodblock, and have been produced by relatively simple manual methods for a long time. The colors are red, yellow, green, black and blue.
Later, under the meticulous production of countless engraving and printing workers, Suzhou New Year Pictures not only have brilliant colors, but also have exquisite composition, outstanding images, clear priorities and rich decoration, forming a unique style of beautiful, delicate and neat national art.
There are many kinds of woodcuts in Taohuawu, which can be roughly divided into door paintings, farm paintings, children's and beautiful women's paintings, decorative pattern paintings, historical story paintings and Chinese legend paintings. Among them, superstitious paintings such as immortal Buddha statues include door gods, kitchen gods and so-called evil spirits.
Among them, the paintings with the content of getting rich and making profits include Harmony, Doll Gaining, Liu Hai Playing for Money, Picture of the Year in the Past, etc. About farming, there are Spring Cattle Map, Harvest figure, Fish and firewood, Harvest in Daqing, etc.
The landscape paintings include landscapes from all over the world, such as Wannian Bridge in Gusu and Changmen Map in Suzhou. The stories, operas and paintings that appeared in the late Yongzheng period in the Qing Dynasty have a wide range, ranging from ancient times to the present, with a single sheet and continuity, such as "Wu Song Beats the Tiger", "Huaguoshan" and "Dingjun Mountain". Genre paintings include "Mysterious Temple Fair" and "Three hundred and sixty lines of pictures inside and outside Suzhou".
Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures are rich in composition, bright in color and decorative. Folk stories, auspicious celebrations, statues, operas and current events are often used as themes to express people's good wishes with symbols, meanings and exaggeration.