Chinese Popular Prints ventures into the world of Chinese blockprint illustration that had its assured niche in the rich history of Chinese popular culture from the 17th to the early 20th centuries. These prints were not considered high art in China, but were produced for the urban and rural populations. The book deals with all aspects of the Chinese popular print. In the first two chapters its invention, origins, powerful traditions and its history are described. Classical art and the Ming illustrated book were important impetuses. Three major centres of north and central China emerged. Finally the popular print took on something of the roles of the modern cinema or television. In the following four chapters the main themes are: the printmakers and printshops; society, symbolism and visual pun; categories of popular prints and their display; technical terms. A description of the workshops and their techniques, figure drawing and colouring, gives a good insight in the technical side of the print. A varied popular culture and a certain realism are strands in it, as are spirit protection of the house, recalls of the past, hopes for the future, the hold of the theatre, etc. Two elaborate appendices provide much detailed information about persons, symbols, as well as about some images in the lore of the print. A special section of 28 illustrations (8 full colour) demonstrates the potentialities of the Chinese blockprint illustration.

Traditional woodblock prints preserve a Chinese folk art that has now nearly vanished. This book explores and explains the artistic and aesthetic bases of popular prints revealed in eighty-four late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prints belonging to the London-based Muban Foundation. Woodblock printing was the principal method of producing inexpensive and colorful single-sheet images for mass consumption in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Prints of this type are known today as "New Year pictures" because the demand for them peaked at New Year's time. However, the term "popular print" more accurately describes these works, whose subjects include deities and tutelary spirits, illustrations to stories and operas, and even contemporary political or revolutionary messages. The emphasis on the artistic aspects of these prints makes this publication uniquely appealing to Chinese art historians but also to those interested in Chinese anthropology, popular religion, Chinese and other folk art, and traditional crafts. Ellen J. Laing received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She was Maude I. Kerns Distinguished Professor of Oriental Art, University of Oregon and is currently Research Associate at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. She has published numerous scholarly articles, books, and reference works on Chinese art.

The book is a first attempt to present the Chinese popular blockprint illustration for display, its culture, history and workshops. It shows how it blossomed out in the urban and rural scenes of recent centuries, finally to succumb to nationalism and revolution.

Introduction -- People, poverty, politics, and posters -- Nature and transformation -- Production and mechanization -- Women hold up half the sky -- Serve the people -- Solidarity -- Politics in command -- After the cultural revolution.

In 1967 a body of Chinese texts was discovered in a tomb outside Shanghai. It contained a set of unique examples of an oral genre favoured by unlearned classes in the late imperial period (15th century), best called 'chantefables', appearing at the beginning of a profound historical shift which resulted in a broadening of the uses of writing and printing in China. These texts are now generally seen to occupy an important place in the development of Chinese literature as a whole, and of Chinese vernacular literature in particular. In the first monographic treatment of all the chantefable corpus in English the author, by examination from a more anthropological view, points out that these 'oral traditional texts' can only be appreciated in the festival, ritual and performative context of their derivation and reception. Topics dealt with in this important work include the popular interpretation of Confucian orthodoxies, the literary recycling of the oral tradition, and the influence of chantefables on the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. The author offers interesting comparative perspective on the different social consequences of print technology in China and the West. Illustrations of ten chantefable woodblocks are included.

"Together the text and illustrations gradually reveal many of the major themes and characteristics of Chinese painting. To "read" these works is to enter a dialogue with the past. Slowly perusing a scroll or album, one shares an intimate experience that has been repeated over the centuries. And it is through such readings that meaning is gradually revealed."--BOOK JACKET.