Wang Kaihao

There is a reason why handwritten letters have not be entirely replaced by their digital counterparts yet — postage stamps. And while they are small, they display a kaleidoscopic world. Beijing’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, and China Post jointly released a set of special stamps inspired by Landscape Across the Four Seasons, a painting that is 69 centimeters long and 40 cm wide and over 800 years old. Created by Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) artist Liu Songnian on silk, the painting has four sections, showing human activity and landscapes throughout the four seasons.

Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum, describes the piece as a representative work of the imperial painting academy during that dynasty because of its elegant facade and technique.

“The image is centered on people,” Shan says. “They look small but are vividly portrayed.

“Realistic and highly expressive approaches are naturally mixed in the artwork.”

The four new postage stamps, which are themed on the four sections of the painting, have a 4 yuan (59 US cents) value in total. A souvenir sheet that includes them all is also available.

Li Pizheng, deputy managing director of China Post, says high-tech printing technology was used to ensure the different layers of landscapes in the painting were clearly depicted in the stamps.

The Forbidden City was China’s royal palace from 1420 to 1911. It now houses nearly 2 million cultural relics, including 53,000 ancient paintings from the collections of emperors. The old collections provide inspiration for Chinese modern designers to develop cultural products such as postal stamps.

The museum signed a cooperation agreement with China Post to better share resources and develop more products from the cultural relics in 2014.

Bathing Horses, a signature painting by 13th-century artist Zhao Mengfu, was the first masterpiece to be printed on stamps.

Last year, the two organizations jointly released stamps inspired by the 11-meter-long rolling-scroll painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains by Song Dynasty (9601279) artist Wang Ximeng, which is among the most prominent works in Chinese fine-art history. The piece was printed on nine stamps in a row. It is also the first set of stamps to completely display an ancient scroll painting.

According to Li, images of the Forbidden City and some of the museum’s cultural relics have been depicted on postage stamps many times since New China was founded in 1949.

“Stamps are like a country’s business card,” Li says. “They enable people to get a closer look at the finest works in our traditional culture.”

Shan says that the stamps are also a kind of precious heritage of the Palace Museum.

“We’re planning to launch a big exhibition displaying them.”

The exhibition will likely show the blueprints of the designs and the cultural relics that appear on the stamps, he adds.

The release of the postage stamps also marked the beginning of the 2018 China Philatelic Week that started on Aug 4.

More than 1,500 activities, including fairs, symposiums and exhibitions, have been or will be held nationwide during the week — especially to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the release of China’s first postage stamp, widely known as the “large dragon”.

Stamps are like a country’s business card. They enable people to get a closer look at the finest works in our traditional culture.”

Li Pizheng,