Woodblock New-Year Prints (Jiajiang New-Year Prints)

Jiajiang New-Year prints are a folk woodblock print made in Jiajiang county of Leshan, originating in the early Ming dynasty, flourishing under the Qing and now nearly five hundred years old. Together with the Mianzhu and Liangping prints they form the "three great Sichuan New-Year prints," a key thread of Ba-Shu folk art, and in 2008 the woodblock New-Year print of Jiajiang entered the second national ICH list under number VII-65.

Jiajiang prints rest on local hand paper-making and Sichuan woodblock printing, printed in colour on sized paper with mineral and vegetable pigments, the subjects spanning door gods, divine images, opera tales, myths, landscapes, flowers and birds, with bold lines, deep colours and a classical air, laid down in overlapping yellow, red, green and purple blocks.

Jiajiang prints are important material for the study of folk belief, festival custom and the spread of woodblock printing in the southwest, carrying the aesthetics and New-Year culture of the Ba-Shu countryside, and holding considerable artistic and folkloric value.