The Kitchen Picture is a decoration picture painted in the kitchens of rural areas. It consists of drama stories and vignettes that symbolize luck. It is usually made by plasterers of rural areas. Today, it can be seen mostly in rural areas of Jiangnan (the south of lower reaches of the Yangtze River of China).
In rural families of Jiangnan, folk handicraftsman will draw a special picture in the kitchen depending on different shapes of the kitchen, to make the kitchen handsome and to reveal the contents of folk belief. The contents of picture are usually classified into six kinds: flowers and plants, animals, Fortune God, historical stories, landscape, and lacy decoration. Words attached to the picture are usually lucky words like "Surplus year after year" and "Both blessings of man and fortune". These kitchen pictures, with plump compositions and exaggerated shapes, are drawn mainly with such three colors as red, yellow and blue, making kitchen pictures colorful, flowery and vivid.
The traditional process of drawing a kitchen picture is: firstly, plasterers brush white limewaters on the surface of kitchen, and then paint side patterns and frames with ink made from coal ashes of the boiler, and then color the picture with the Three Flower Powder and Water Powder. Presently, kitchen pictures have been developed into many types, such as Tile Kitchen Picture which is made through drawing oil color direct on the tile.
The Kitchen Picture is valuable for the research of the folk culture, such as the tradition of Kitchen Sacrifice. It has fostered a number of excellent folk artists in this regard.
