Jiang Yanwen 姜彦文. Mishi yuyi: Yangliuqing nianhua zhong de duozhong shijie 谜式寓意: 杨柳青年画中的多重世界 [Enigmatic allusions: Multiple worlds within Yangliuqing-New Year Pictures], Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 2024. ISBN: 978-7-201-19965-8, 315 pages, 198 RMB.
Reviewed by Bernd Spyra (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)

During his China voyage of 1907, the Russian sinologist Vasiliy M. Alekseyev (1881–1951) visited a small town on the banks of the grand canal, famed for its production of popular New Year prints: Yangliuqing. Here Alekseyev bought a sizeable amount of prints, becoming one of the first scholars to prolifically collect this hitherto overlooked expression of Chinese popular culture. Being fascinated with, but unable to decipher the prints’ complex symbolic language, he asked his Chinese teachers in Beijing to assist him, however, they helped him only reluctantly, deeming the prints to be associated too strongly with the illiterate, lower classes to be worth their time. Alekseyev however, who understood the prints as an intrinsic component of Chinese culture, persisted and would become a pioneer in researching Chinese New Year pictures.
Following in the footsteps of Alekseyev, the book reviewed here presents images from Yangliuqing (near Tianjin), one of the largest centers of popular print production during the Qing-dynasty, which even today is still renowned for the quality of its prints. It needs to be kept in mind though that it was only one of dozens of such sites in China, well-known others including Suzhou’s Taohuawu, Mianzhu (Sichuan), Zhuxianzhen (Henan), Yangjiabu, Wei, Zhongjiazhuang and Jiangzhuangzhen (Shandong), as well as Wuqiang (Hebei). However, as the book’s author, Jiang Yanwen, is a local of Tianjin, an associate professor of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and director of Tianjin’s Wang Shucun Popular Art Research Center, his focus on local New Year prints comes as no surprise. In addition to numerous research papers and curated exhibitions, the author edited the Tianjin-volume of Rare Editions of Old Chinese New Year Pictures (中国古版年画珍本, 2015) and co-curated the exhibition Gods in My Home: Chinese Ancestor Portraits and Popular Prints (Royal Ontario Museum, 2019).
The present work by Jiang provides case studies of the symbolic language used in late Qing dynasty/early Republic popular prints produced in the workshops of Yangliuqing. It is divided into four parts: Following an introductory essay on Vasiliy M. Alekseyev’s problems of decoding the allusions he encountered within the New Year pictures he collected on his seminal voyage, the bulk of this book is formed by reproductions of 84 prints, as well as discussions of the allusions found in this selection of popular images, made up of door gods and door pictures (menshen menhua 门神门画), beautiful women and babies (shinü wawa 仕女娃娃), scenes of popular tales and opera (gushi xiqu 故事戏曲), scenes of folk customs and life (minsu shenghuo 民俗生活), as well as images of gods and idols (shenxiang zhima 神像纸马). According to the author, the images all come from the old collection of Wang Shucun 王树村 (1923–2009), as well as from unnamed collectors from Shanghai, Shandong and Tianjin. An appendix contains a thorough essay on the general history of auspicious designs and auspicious pictures (jixiang tu’an yu jixiang hua 吉祥图案与吉祥画) by the godfather of Chinese popular art research, Wang Shucun, which was originally published in 1992, as well as a brief 5-page-glossary of commonly found symbols and allusions within popular art (minjian meishu zhong de xiangzheng he yuyi 民间美术中的象征和寓意) compiled by Xie Changyi 谢昌一.
In the author’s own words, the inspiration for this book originated from Alekseyev’s difficulties in decoding the allusions within the New Year pictures he encountered in 1907. Today, more than a hundred years later, the problem for Chinese viewers of these prints has curiously become the same: Having disappeared from everyday life and turned into objects in museums and playthings for collectors, the wider population hardly has an opportunity to see them, let alone understand what these prints express. The aim of this book is therefore to discuss “allusions” (yuyi 寓意) as a possible perspective in accessing these images, with the author using the concept in the broadest sense, including all visual rhetoric encountered in popular prints, such as metonymy (jiedai 借代), symbolism (xiangzheng 象征), metaphor (biyu 比喻), association (lianxiang 联想), hyperbole (kuazhang夸张) and so on. Since these elements of visual rhetoric are encountered in multiple layers, the author grasps them as multiple worlds within New Year pictures. This overlapping, intricate complex of meaning provides the goal of this study: To analyse New Year pictures from Yangliuqing using an interpretative method inspired by the work of the famous art historian Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968).[1]Panofsky’s “iconological” approach encompasses analysing three layers of meaning in an artwork, in this case New Year pictures: First the things depicted, and their “natural meaning” (ziran yiyi 自然意义), which the author identifies as pre-iconic signs (qiantuxiangzhi 前图像志), on the second level the “traditional meaning” (chuantong yiyi 传统意义), which expresses an alluded meaning through methods such as homophony and symbolism, identified as “iconic signs” (tuxiang zhi 图像志). The third layer of meaning is the underlying meaning (shenceng yiyi 深层意义) of the image, or its cultural significance. As an example of this approach, the author gives the print “Honest and kind family traits” (zhonghou jiafeng 忠厚家风) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: “Honest and kind family traits” (《忠厚家风》). Reproduced from Jiang 2024, 10.
The author first describes the content of the picture as the first layer of meaning: A smiling boy sitting on the ground, with a large bell (zhong 钟) behind (hou 后) him, is holding a cotton rose hibiscus branch in one hand. To his right side, in a fishing basket, is a crab holding a honeycomb (fengwo 蜂窝) in his pincers, which is surrounded by bees. On the second layer of meaning, the bell behind the boy through homophony alludes to honesty and kindness (zhonghou 忠厚), while the honeycomb held by the crab likewise through homophony alludes to family traits (jiafeng 家风). Taken together, they can be taken as the “honest and kind family traits” of the title. As for the third layer, the author somewhat curtly posits the picture to be the embodiment of the moral concepts esteemed by the traditional Chinese family (Zhongguo chuantong jiating 中国传统家庭).
According to the author, from this and other examples, the complexity of the alluded meaning within New Year Pictures can be seen: The world within the actual (xianshi zhong de shijie 现实中的世界), the world of homophones (xieyin de shijie 谐音的世界), the world of symbols (xiangzheng de shijie 象征的世界), the world of metaphors (biyu de shijie 比喻的世界), and the world of imagination (huanxiang de shijie 幻想的世界), which together constitute the multiple worlds that the title of the book refers to.
As it stands, the book under review is a valuable contribution to the popularization of New Year prints to a wider Chinese audience, as intended by the author. Compared to classic dictionaries of Chinese symbolism, such as Williams 1960[1]and Eberhard 1986,[2] both of which the author acknowledges in his introduction, the reader is provided with explanations of the symbolism of specific images without having to guess and look up for himself which symbols are employed in a given New Year picture, which for example in the case of identifying botanicals can pose considerable difficulties in itself. As a work of research, however, several aspects of the book would profit from further consideration.
First of all, the choice of the iconological approach – almost a contemporary of Alekseyev! – does not add much new to the understanding of New Year pictures. While most do not specifically mention Panofsky’s method, classic studies such as Bo and Johnson 1992,[3] and Laing 2002,[4] have already demonstrated “decoding” of the symbolism found in New Year Pictures to remarkable depths. Being something of a standard approach, nevertheless, it can of course still be useful in working with New Year pictures.
What could be considered more problematic, is that in his analyses, the author rarely explores the third, underlying, layer of meaning: The cultural significance of the images under discussion at the time of their creation. In order to do this, it would be necessary to go beyond the understanding of New Year pictures as symbolic images, and grasp them as material objects being produced, transmitted and received in specific historical contexts, like Flath has done in his 2004 study, for example.[5] In the analyses of the images in the second section of this book, these contexts are not further acknowledged by the author, even though he referred to the background of Alekseyev’s collection effort towards these kind of prints in the year 1907 in his introduction, referring to a specific moment in time and receptive context.
In consequence, the prints here remain somewhat timeless representations of an abstract, “traditional” China. As a case in point, the prints in the book are merely dated as “Qing-Dynasty” (Qing dai 清代), “Republican” (Minguo 民国), “Qing Dynasty plate” (Qing dai ban 清代版) or “Republican plate” (Minguo ban 民国版), indicating either prints surviving from said period, or prints produced later, but using historic printing plates. Given that the Qing-Dynasty was in power for more than 250 years, a more precise dating scheme would be a helpful addition. This even more so, since the vast bulk of the prints will not be from the early Qing, which did not know organized collection and preservation efforts, but from the early 20th century, perhaps after 1907? Surprisingly, even where a more precise dating of prints would clearly be possible based on the content of images, such as in the case of the print “Overflowing surplus” Fugui you yu 富贵有余(pp. 88-89), which bears the inscription “jiachen nianzhi 甲辰年製”, pointing to its creation in the years 1844 or 1904 (given that the author dates the plate to “Qing dynasty”), the author refrains from integrating it in his analyses.
Perhaps as another side of the same coin, the provenance of the prints is also not discussed by the author at all, apart from mentioning that part of the prints in this book came from the “old collection” of Wang Shucun, with others being owned by collectors from Shanghai, Shandong and Tianjin. While the formal characteristics of the prints all clearly point to them being produced in Yangliuqing, the minutes of their production, preservation, and ultimately transmission to the author are not discussed. This is especially striking in an example, wherein the charred edge of a print very loudly points to the prints originally intended eventual fate of ritual burning (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: “Effective hairy god” (《灵应老毛神》). Reproduced from Jiang 2024, 275.
How did the print survive the flames, and how did it enter the collection of Wang Shucun? Curiously an inscription in pencil, on the lower margin of the print, reads “Qing Dynasty” (清代), the author however identifies the print as made from a “Qing dynasty plate”. This would indicate a reprint at some later time, perhaps in the early PRC (for the print is not dated to the Republic), and thus already a context of appreciation for these prints as representations of “traditional” rural peasant culture, perhaps even being printed for the purpose of collecting. A makers or collectors stamp in the lower left corner of the print further points to a collection background of this print, but then how does the fire damage enter the picture here? Two other prints in the book (pp. 278–281) share the same charred edges on the prints’ right side, indicating a possible common origin, but display different or no stamps. All of these possible inroads for further analyses however are left lying fallow by the author, who concentrates on what is visible within the picture, leaving the reader to make educated guesses.
In summary: The book under review here has a definite value as a pictorial dictionary of “allusions” (寓意), especially for readers who normally do not encounter these images in their everyday environment (any more). The book further testifies to the authors knowledge of and experience with Yangliuqing’s New Year pictures, which is clearly apparent from his analyses of the images. The author’s self-set aim to propose Panofsky’s method as a viable perspective on New Year pictures is exercised on a variety of different images, however, the author in many cases shies away from expounding on the underlying meaning or cultural significance of the images. Perhaps to fully do so would benefit from including a fourth layer of meaning, this being the material aspects and social contexts of the production, transmission and reception of New Year pictures, which root them in a specific historic moment and place, and only then permits to fully “decode” their meaning in that context.
[1] The author quotes Erwin Panofsky’s 1939 book, Studies in Iconology. Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford Univ. Press) in the form of a Chinese translation published in 2011.
[1] Williams, C. A. S. Encyclopedia of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives: An Alphabetical Compendium of Legends and Beliefs as Reflected in the Manners and Customs of the Chinese throughout History. Re-Issue of the revised ed. 1932. New York: Julian Pr., 1960.
[2] Eberhard, Wolfram. A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought. London ; New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
[3] Bo, Songnian, and David Johnson. Domesticated Deities and Auspicious Emblems: The Iconography of Everyday Life in Village China. Chinese Popular Culture Project 2. Berkeley, CA: Chinese Popular Culture Project, 1992.
[4] Laing, Ellen Johnston. Art and Aesthetics in Chinese Popular Prints: Selections from the Muban Foundation Collection. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, v. 94. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002.
[5] Flath, James Alexander. The Cult of Happiness: Nianhua, Art, and History in Rural North China. Contemporary Chinese Studies. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
dutournier (10 septembre 2025). [Review] 姜彦文:《谜式寓意: 杨柳青年画中的多重世界》 (Jiang Yanwen: Enigmatic allusions: Multiple worlds within Yangliuqing-New Year Pictures). L'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient en Chine - The French School of Asian Studies in China - 法國遠東學院在中國. Consulté le 13 avril 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/14mbt