Snake Stamps

Snake is a very poisonous and aggressive animal in people's mind, but it is a beautiful symbol in the ancient Chinese folk culture, and is the earliest totem of the Chinese nation. China has so far issued two sets of Chinese zodiac snake tickets. I organized some information, welcome to read!

The history

The first set is the "Year of the Snake in the Year of the Snake" issued on January 5, **** one. The stamps featured peonies, Shunlien lotus, chrysanthemums and plum blossoms, with five tadpole-shaped snakes interspersed among the flowers, ending with a durian-shaped fishscale set piece at the end. The snake's mouth is holding the grass, its head is in the middle, and its body follows the trajectory of a wonderful "black belt" that stretches out euphemistically, with the tail and head in the same direction, cocking and flinging, symbolizing the peace of the four seasons and the good fortune. The issuance of the first round, filling a gap in the Chinese Zodiac theme stamps, for the Chinese Zodiac culture to the world has made a great contribution; also let the snake this mixed reptile, with a good image into people's lives.

The second set is the "Year of the Snake" issued in 2001, **** two stamps.

The first stamp pattern "Auspicious Snake Blessing" in the shape of paper-cut snake is very soft, head down slightly low, like a water lotus flower does not win the shyness of the cool wind.

The second stamp pattern "auspicious luck" in the two coiled snake relative to the lotus flower. The whole picture is green background, yellow picture, red characters, very auspicious.

The world's first set of snake stamps was issued by Mexico in 1864, and the world's earliest Chinese zodiac snake stamps were issued by Japan in 1950 for the Lunar New Year.

China's issuance of the "Year of the Snake" and "Year of the Snake" zodiac stamps reflect the rich expressive power of China's folk art. The designers will be folk paper-cutting and woodcut New Year's paintings of certain performance techniques and color characteristics into one, the whole design has a certain ideological connotation and easy for the general public to understand and accept.

Introduction

"The basic requirement of Zodiac stamps is to be festive, auspicious and harmonious, and to express people's good wishes for an auspicious start to the year." "Dec. Year" snake stamp designer Wu Guanying told reporters that he began to conceptualize this stamp from April to May this year, the design process of the review experts have put forward a lot of suggestions, after repeated modifications to form the final program, from the evaluation of more than 30 programs were selected. "Snake is the twelve zodiac stamps in the most difficult to draw, stamps are square, the snake is coiled, not very easy to layout, I'll let its tail up, so that the picture looks fuller." Wu Guanying said, the snake's tail is said to be auspicious clouds, some say it is Ruyi, in fact, the beginning of the painting is indeed clouds, but the final draft is in accordance with the Ganoderma lucidum painting, because Ganoderma lucidum is a kind of immortal grass, in folklore is also a good-luck thing, but also very good-looking, this inspiration is inadvertently generated.

According to the China Post Group stamps issued by the relevant person in charge of the Department of the snake year stamp design operation took nearly a year, from the beginning of the year to find experts, scholars, painters to design and review, synthesize the views of all parties, repeated revisions, and finally from dozens of programs to determine this now. It is understood that this year's "Imjin year" dragon ticket designer Chen Shaohua also participated in the "dec Si year" snake stamp design, but his draft was not adopted. The reporter saw, Chen Shaohua designed the snake stamp pattern is a disk similar to the shape of the Chinese knot small snake, the design approach is very realistic.

Design Concept

"The snake body is in red, because in ancient times it was said that the red snake means great luck, the peony headdress indicates wealth and prosperity, and the peach blossom, lotus, chrysanthemum, and prunus flowers on the snake represent the four seasons and express the meaning of repetition and longevity." For the most distinctive bead on the snake ticket, some speculate that it comes from the two dragons playing with pearls, and that the snake is a small dragon that can also play with pearls. Wu Guanying explained that the bead originated from the story of the snake holding a pearl in order to repay a favor in the Jin Dynasty novel So Shen Ji, "There is a description in the novel that the snake holding a pearl is an auspicious omen, a metaphor for accumulating goodness and virtues, and knowing the meaning of repaying a favor." Wu Guanying said, this is added under the proposal of the review experts, and the snake coiled way inspired by a picture of money strings coiled in the trunk of a tree that he had seen.