What is the origin and meaning of window grilles?

Window grilles refer to paper-cuts pasted on windows, which have distinctive folk tastes and artistic characteristics. In the past, during the Spring Festival, both the South and the North needed stick grilles. At present, it is only posted when people get married in the south, but it is generally not posted during the Spring Festival, while the custom of stick grilles in the north has always prevailed. Stick grilles is mainly to express his celebration of the New Year and his longing for a better life in the future.

There are two theories about the origin of window grilles. First, before the Western Han Dynasty, people used gold foil, leaves, leather and other materials for carving and decoration. Later, with the invention of paper, they began to replace it with lighter and cheaper paper. It was not until the Song and Yuan Dynasties that people changed the decals to Spring Festival couplets, which meant good luck in the New Year. Another theory comes from an old legend. People carved all kinds of golden birds and wooden chickens with the image of a double-edged eagle and stuck them on the windows to deter monsters, and later gradually evolved into window grilles.

Window grilles have a history of thousands of years, and gradually spread and shaped during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the handicraft art of paper-cutting matured and reached its peak. During the Spring Festival in stick grilles, people decorate the environment and make up the atmosphere, with the hope of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new. With its unique generalization and exaggeration, window grilles show auspicious things and good wishes incisively and vividly, implying a longing for a better life.