As late as in the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties (206B. C. -220 A. D.), people liked to paste the images of various gods on both sides of the door, expecting them to ward off evil and usher in good luck. These images are called "the door-gods". Since people pasted them up during the Spring Festival, these pictures gained a special significance for the occasion.

The art of printing from engraved plates, which was invented in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A. D.), brought about further development of nianhua. Before the Tang Dynasty, nianhua in most cases were images of deities and spirits.