China's printmaking art has a long history, which entered an unprecedented peak stage during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty and created a large number of excellent works. Standing at the top of this peak is Huizhou printmaking art. The sudden emergence of Huizhou printmaking has two reasons: tradition and times. Traditionally, since the Song Dynasty, Huizhou culture has been relatively developed, and Huizhou customs have paid special attention to the patriarchal clan system. All clans have genealogies, which are often accompanied by schematic diagrams of villages and cemeteries and portraits of ancestors, which can be regarded as primitive prints. At present, there are several kinds of Gong Gong Tu carved by prominent families in southern Anhui. Prints are large, but they are not carved as a whole, but are carved into many small images and printed continuously. In the 12th year of Hongzhi (1499), Huang Yongmin and others carved the portrait of this rural sage on the Zhan Jiazu attached to the Zhan family tree in Liutang, Xiuning. Although the lines are too short and the characters are dull, painting, engraving and printing have reached a considerable level. Although it is difficult for these folk works to reach the real "artistic" realm, they provide a social foundation for printmaking and also train printmakers. As far as the times are concerned, due to the rapid development of Huizhou merchants group, the level of various cultural undertakings in Huizhou has been continuously improved due to financial support. This has promoted the progress of printmaking in at least two aspects. The first aspect is that with the improvement of cultural level, Huizhou has become a new center of book engraving industry. Hu Yinglin, a Wanli, said in "Painting Collection of Shaoshi Mountain Rooms": "What I saw today was the best in Su Dynasty and Chang Dynasty, followed by Jinling and Hangzhou. Facing the lake, the engraving is suddenly fine, so it is often compared with Su and Chang. " Xie's "Five Miscellanies" also said: "There is not enough engraving in Hangzhou today. Jinling, Xing Wu and Xin 'an are as exquisite as the Song version. ..... Recently, Xing Wu and Jinling have gradually fallen into this disease. "Ming and Qing prints are different from the personal creation of print artists today, and basically exist as illustrations of books. Only by developing such a large-scale book engraving industry can we provide a broad training place and art world for printmaking. The second promotion of Huizhou cultural development to printmaking is that with the popularization of literati and the development of book industry, more and more intellectuals and painters set foot in this field, and the cultural level of stereotyped artists has also been greatly improved, which undoubtedly promoted the rise of printmaking taste.
The smooth development and high quality of Huizhou book engraving industry are related to the custom of passing on skills from generation to generation within the clan. Huizhou engravers are mostly from Huang's family in Qiu village, Shexian county. According to Huang Family Tree, Huang Zi began to engrave books during the orthodox period. After Wanli, more and more practitioners continued until the Qing Dynasty. There are hundreds of sculptors before and after, and there are no fewer than dozens of famous sculptors in the country. Not only did they almost monopolize Huizhou's woodcut status, but they also lived abroad in large numbers, which created a powerful force in the printmaking circles of Hangzhou, Jiangsu and Xing Wu. For example, Huang Zhong's annotation on Treatise on Febrile Diseases and the classics of famous officials in Ming Dynasty were all written by famous people, including his father Huang Shiqiong, his younger brother Huang Cheng, Huang Qian and his son Huang Shouyan. Huang Pound's illustration of "A New Edition of Mulian's Drama of Saving Mother and Persuasing Kindness" is considered as a watershed between the old and new periods of Huizhou printmaking. Huang Gao is engraved with illustrations of ancient biographies of women. Yellow? Carve illustrations, such as preparing charts, jade runner-up, immortal Buddha wonders, etc. Together with his son Huang, he also carved "Building the Emperor Map", which is a masterpiece of Huizhou printmaking. Huang's De is very good. Huangying Group is an outstanding representative of Huizhou woodcut, which has a great influence on Jinling woodcut. The illustrations include Kong Sheng Atlas School and Jing. His younger brother, Huang, also has exquisite skills, engraved with "Hanhanzhai Wine Brand". Yellow? There are illustrations engraved with books such as The Story of the North West Chamber, Explaining the Righteousness, and Cheng Mo Yuan. Many drawings and knives are extremely clear and neat. Huang De always has illustrations of books such as Xuanhe Bo Gu Map, Archaeological Map and Hosta, while his younger brother Huang Dechong is engraved with illustrations of books such as Chronicle of Yuan Xian and Drawing Zong Yi. Yellow? He is a famous sculptor. His son, Huang Demao, has illustrations of books such as Fang Mo Pu and Archaeological Map, Huang has illustrations of books such as Ancient Zaju and Peony Pavilion Rebirth, and Huang Dexin has illustrations of books such as Records of Qin and Han Dynasties and Preface to the History of Qin and Han Dynasties, all of which are famous. Huang Yingrui is engraved with various illustrations such as Zaju in Daya Gallery, Simian in Four Tones, etc. Together with his younger brother Huang Yingtai, he is engraved with the picture of the top scholar and the compilation of the female garden. His works have distinct layers, including exquisite landscapes, trees, terraces and ladies. Huang has many works. Together with his younger brothers Huang Yifeng and Huang Yibin, he carved illustrations for books such as The North West Chamber and the South Pipa, which are very beautiful. Huang Jianzhong, the son of Huang Yibin, is also a master, and he is engraved with "A New Annotation of Metaphysics Spectrum by Xiu Xiang" and "Leaves of Bo Gu". The above examples are only a small part of Huang's works, and we can already see the degree of its prosperity.
It is generally believed that Huizhou printmaking gradually formed its own unique style from the tenth year of Wanli (1582), starting with Zheng Zhizhen's illustrations published in Gaoshi Mountain House. The artistic level of this set of prints is not inferior to that of the prestigious Jinling Fuchuntang prints. The composition is very imaginative, and Huang Wei's knife flies smoothly. However, it should also be noted that this set of prints is more bold and unconstrained, less refined and refined, and there is little difference in style from Jinling School. Since then, bookstores in Suzhou and Hangzhou, Xing Wu and Huizhou have also shown the same trend. In order to consolidate their position and expand their influence, publishing houses have spared no expense to pursue luxury and richness, and old bookstores have also changed the traditional illustration format of the above picture to single-sided or full-page. In this competition, the emerging Huizhou prints have been successful. The owners of Huizhou Mozhuang and Bookstore spend a lot of money to hire famous painters such as Ding, Wu, Joe Cheng and Huang Yingcheng to paint. Please carve the picture with Huang Mingren as the main body. They publish ink drawings, music records, drawing charts, folk stories, schools of thought contend and drama novels. The prints in the book have attracted wide attention and gained a good reputation. In order to survive, failed foreign bookstores have to. According to Mr. Wu Zhou's summary in the History of Huizhou Prints, the characteristics of Huizhou Prints can be summarized as follows: "Fine, delicate, rich, quiet, scholarly and elegant, which can be read by writers and understood by village women." Although the use of line drawing is a common feature of traditional prints in China, Huizhou prints have the most outstanding achievements. Huizhou prints reflect the traditional appreciation habits of China people, and the composition is complete and full, leaving no blank. When the picture is structured, it always uses single-line narration and layout, pays attention to the combination of poetry and painting, and is often accompanied by poetry, text and seal, emphasizing the decorative effect. The sculptor paints each line with rapt attention, sometimes as thin as hair, as soft as spun silk, and sometimes as thick as a gap and as strong as a ridge. In addition, the invention of color overprint technology is one of the greatest achievements of printmaking in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, among which Huizhou people made outstanding contributions. The Ten Bamboo Paintings and Notes published by Hu adopted the arch lining technology, which made the pictures colorful and promoted the qualitative leap of woodcut printing.