Creative block

The popularity of offset printing grew, because it was easier and cheaper to produce pictures in larger quantities. Along with war and social upheaval, things looked bleak for the traditional printing method.

The most famous new year picture workshop in Yangliuqing town, Dai Lianzeng, which once served the imperial palace in Beijing, finally closed in the 1930s after 19 generations.

"If it was not the country's effort to save the craft of woodblock printing in the 1950s," Wang recalls, "it would be dead."

Still, the medium continues to struggle commercially. People's changing aesthetics may be a new threat to the life of Spring Festival pictures.

"Chinese New Year pictures were daily-use products in the old days," Wang says. "Now we have to improve the designs to make them appeal as art pieces. Only when we make them more exquisite, people are more willing to collect."

Reform has been underway since 2005, and a younger generation of artisans have joined the workshop. According to Kong Qing, a manager at the workshop, annual competitions have been organized there to encourage new designs and formats. Each year, two to three winning designs are turned into products.

"Veteran artisans and scholars will judge the blueprints to make sure the creativity does not go in the wrong direction," Kong says.