What's the story of the Spring Festival custom of putting up New Year pictures?

The custom of pasting New Year pictures during the Spring Festival is very common, and colorful New Year pictures add a lot of festive atmosphere to thousands of families. New Year pictures are an ancient folk art in China, which reflects people's customs and beliefs and places their hopes and longings for the future. New Year pictures, like Spring Festival couplets, originated from "door gods".

Since the Spring Festival couplets came into being, they have developed in the direction of literature, and New Year pictures have developed in the direction of painting. With the rise of block printing, colorful New Year pictures such as Fu Lushou's three stars, Spring Festival, God bless the people, bumper harvest of grains and prosperity of six animals have appeared. With the development of New Year pictures symbolizing auspicious days, the themes of New Year pictures are more extensive. The most common ones are: a fat doll holding a big carp symbolizes good luck; Cornucopia and cash cow symbolize making a fortune.

New Year pictures include landscape paintings, flower-and-bird paintings and so on. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zheng of Shanghai combined the monthly calendar with New Year pictures, forming a new form of New Year pictures. This combination is deeply loved by people and still prevails all over the country.

At present, the earliest collected New Year pictures in China are woodcut New Year pictures of the Southern Song Dynasty, which depict four ancient beauties: Wang Zhaojun, Zhao, Ban Ji and Lvzhu. The most popular among the people is a New Year picture of "Mice Married", which depicts an interesting scene of mice marrying their brides according to human customs.

There is also a story of "Liu Hai plays the golden toad". According to legend, Liu Hai was the prime minister of Yan State in the Five Dynasties and later became an immortal. It is said that he has become a fairy-like boy with short hair on his forehead, riding a golden toad and dancing with a string of money in his hand, indicating that he is rich and rich, which is a symbol of good luck. Therefore, some people put up pictures of "Liu Hai and Jin Chan playing" at home during the Spring Festival.