刀尖上的技艺：云南“绝版木刻” | Skill on the Tip of a Knife

What do you think of when you hear "Yunnan"?Is it the peacock flying to the southeast? Is it an elephant strolling in the rainforest? Is it a dancing minority girl? Or its fascinating biodiversity?

In fact, in addition to these, there is also a special art form from Yunnan—the mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing.

On the afternoon of January 23, 2022, an academic lecture on the genealogy of printmaking was held on the 8th floor of Kunming Contemporary Art Museum’s exhibition hall.

The exhibition, "Genealogy—Yunnan Printmaking since 1978", is co-organized by Yunnan Arts University and Kunming Contemporary Art Museum and supported by the Yunnan Artists Association Printmaking Art Committee. It reviews the development and academic achievements of Yunnan printmaking in the past 40 years, presenting the pictorial landscape and creative ecology of Yunnan printmaking to the audience.

Lu Xun once said, "Chinese woodcut printing has a very significant history from the Tang Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty." The earliest Xian Tong printmaking work in China, The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, was made in the ninth year of Yizong of the Tang Dynasty (868). While The Namo Sakyamuni from the Liao and Song Dynasties was the earliest colored overprint printmaking found in China. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Jian'an School centered in Jianyang of Fujian Province, the Jinling School centered in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, the Wuling School centered in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, and the Hui School centered in Huizhou of Anhui Province had led the way in the history of printmaking art and have been influential for generations. In the 1930s, the new woodcut movement, with Lu Xun at the forefront, led the artistic trend of the New Culture Movement in the period after the May 4th Movement, being "the spear and dagger of the Chinese revolution ".

In contrast, Yunnan’s mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing does not have such a long history.

Yunnan Pu'er mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing emerged first in the 1980s. After more than 30 years of development, it has now become one of the most important printmaking schools in China.

As a letterpress technique developed on the basis of the traditional colored woodcut, the mimeograph chromatic woodcut not only reflects the ethnic flavor of Yunnan printmaking, but also maximizes the artists' room for expressing individuality and talent. It has greatly enriched the creative language and expression techniques of printmaking, laid an important foundation for the rise of Yunnan printmaking, and become one of the most important art forms in contemporary printmaking. It concentrates all the colors of a painting on one plate and it is done in a decreasing way by printing while engraving, and is therefore also called "reduced plate method".

When talking about "Yunnan mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing", He Kun, deputy director of the Printmaking Art Committee of the Chinese Art Association, researcher of the Chinese National Academy of Painting and honorary chairman of the Yunnan Artists Association, said, "Our woodcut printing in Yunnan has chosen a path different from the rest of the world when it comes to printmaking techniques, which is an important contribution of Yunnan people to the world’s art and culture."

When trying to explain the uniqueness of Yunnan mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing, Guo Hao, dean of Yunnan Arts University, second-class professor and doctoral supervisor, said, "Yunnan mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing belongs to Pu'er, China and the world. Its greatness lies in reversing the production process of printmaking, so that the artist is no longer a slave to infrastructural reproduction. This makes printmaking freer and closer to the creative process of painting, realizing a new way of creation."

Zhang Xiaochun, a member of the Chinese Artists Association and the Chinese Printmakers Association, argues that one of the biggest development features of Yunnan mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing is the integration of western modern art styles with local concepts, languages and humanistic national spirituality into the creation process of mimeograph chromatic woodcut printing.

Wei Qicong, who has been engaged in printmaking for many years, participated and won awards for many of his works in domestic and international printmaking exhibitions, and whose works have been collected by many domestic art museums, stated that, "The printmaking created in Yunnan in the 1980s is still very expressive today, and its creation is the result of an era."