Detail

`Folk paintings are part of folk art in which the aesthetic consciousness and sentiment and emotion of a people are visually expressed. The Ministry of Communications has selected nine out of the many Korean folk paintings in order to issue them as postage stamps. This is to help understand, from the aesthetic side, the popular emotion that has been long dominant in the Korean hearts. By this, the Ministry of Communications also hopes to bring people both at home and abroad in contact with our cultural and artistic uniqueness. The selections will be issued in series and the following two are the first series. 1. Lotus This picture, painted on a folding screen, depicts a lotus pond with fullblown lotus blossoms. A lotus pond is part of the typical home garden during the Yi Dynasty. Though it well expresses the Korean sentiment, the lotus-pond picture gradually became smaller in its scale until it was reduced in the late Yi Dynasty to occupy only a panel of the ``Flower and Bird``folding screen. 2. Magpie and Tiger During the Yi Dynasty, magpie and tiger were believed to be animals symbolic of exorcizing evil spirits and fending off disasters and diseases. Thus, people came to hang a ``Magpie and Tiger`` picture on a wall on New Year`s Day. The ``Magpie and Tiger`` painting, which has a time-honored tradition, depicts a crouching tiger and a magpie on a tree branch giving him a divine message.`