Abstract: After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Yunnan painters, with sincere and genuine emotions, applied the composing concept of realism and the artistic language of woodcut printmaking to compose prints themed around the lives of ethnic minorities in Yunnan, eulogizing the happy life and great unity of all ethnic groups in the new China. With the reform and opening up in the 1980s, Yunnan painters absorbed the ideas of modern art around the world, employing the composing concept of formalism and the artistic language of printmaking to emphasize the aesthetic sense of form to reproduce the living visage of the ethnic groups in Yunnan. In the 1990s, Yunnan painters drew on contemporary art concepts around the world to explore the language of printmaking itself, beginning to interpret the spirit and will to life of Yunnan's ethnic minorities. The composing concepts and artistic language of Yunnan ethnic minority life-themed printmaking have undergone three shifts, reflecting the historical track of continuously exploring cultural resources.

Key words: Yunnan woodcut, ethnic theme, composing concept, artistic language