On March 1, 2016, The Confucius Institute at Nürnberg-Erlangen, together withNürnbergInternational Relationship Bureau held a woodcut painting exhibition. The Sacred Heart Hall ofNürnbergInternational Relationship Bureau displayed door-keeper god pictures and Chinese Spring Festival pictures with rich colors and elements of Chinese culture.
On the opening ceremony, the Sacred Heart Hall was crowded with people, with nearly 100 visitors fromNürnbergcity. Doctor Xu Yan, German Director of the Confucius Institute at Nürnberg-Erlangen, presided over the opening ceremony. Ms. Yang Bo, deputy Director of Shandong Museum, was invited to deliver an opening speech. She said that at the beginning of the year, over 50 woodcut paintings from Yangjiafu, Shandong Province were displayed atNürnbergto show German people more about Chinese regional culture and the custom of Spring Festival in Shandong. She thanked the Confucius Institute at Nürnberg-Erlangen for providing this platform and introducing Shandong culture to German people so that they could better understand Chinese culture. Then Doctor Peter Schönlein, former mayor ofNürnbergextended a warm welcome to elaborate works from Shandong Museum and woodcut paintings with Chinese features. He said, the display of elaborated Shandong woodcut paintings inNürnbergwas another bridge provided by the Confucius Institute at Nürnberg-Erlangenfor cultural communication between Bavaria and Shandong. This bridge would deepen the cultural communication between China and German.
The woodcut painting from Yangjiafu, Shandong is one of China’s intangible culture heritages. Every year when Spring Festival comes, local people would post auspicious and festive pictures on the door, symbolizing family peace and hoping to block misfortune out of the door. The vivid and extraordinary Spring Festival pictures introduced the splendid oriental culture to the visitors. The exhibition featured three themes: “Ghosts and Gods” amazed German visitors with bold and exotic imaginations; “Legends and Lives” recorded time-honored historical legends and daily lives of Chinese people; “Pray for Blessings” symbolizes Chinese people’s yearning for a prosperous life and good wishes to the Year of Monkey. Two staff members from Shandong Museum demonstrated how Chinese Spring Festival pictures were made. A picture with five colors needed overprinting with five different boards. The creative idea and elaborated techniques earned warm applause from the visitors, many of whom were eager to have a try and brought home the Spring Festival pictures made by themselves.
The exhibition lasted from March 2 to March 30. It is said that after the exhibition, the items on display would be presented to the Confucius Institute for exhibition tours in other German cities. The first exhibition tour would be in the City Hall ofErlangenin February 2017.
On February 24 and March 2,NürnbergerNachrichten, the local newspaper, introduced features of Shandong woodcut Spring Festive pictures and relevant information about this exhibition in an extensive manner.
