Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Photography and portraiture - Why are the RMB cases mostly portraits?

Why are the RMB cases mostly portraits?

There are scientific reasons for using people in RMB design, mainly because of the need of currency anti-counterfeiting. According to the investigation and analysis of relevant experts, people are generally the most sensitive to people, especially those who are familiar with them, and are easily recognized. The cultural quality of our people varies greatly. There are quite a few illiterate and semi-illiterate people in some remote areas. Although some of these people can't read, they can't tell people apart. For example, people are used to calling the third set of RMB 100 coupons "Great Unity" and the fourth set of RMB 100 coupons "Four Leaders", which are all derived from the characters' patterns, while other patterns will not have such an effect. For example, someone did a set of experiments to mix the pictures of Huashan, Huangshan, Taishan and Hengshan, which made it difficult for people with low education to distinguish clearly, and people with high education who had never been to the field also made mistakes. This is one of the reasons why different RMB designers invariably choose graphics as patterns when designing.

Secondly, most of the characters on RMB designs are hand-carved, and some lines need to be carved with several knives to dozens of knives. Even if the same sculptor repeats the same work, there will be differences. Because people are most sensitive to the changes in people's heads, especially those who are already familiar with them, and those with RMB patterns, if there are subtle differences or anomalies, they will be immediately detected and easily distinguished. If it is the difference in fonts, it is difficult for ordinary people to recognize it. Therefore, it conforms to the universal law of people's understanding of things and has a unique role in anti-counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting. The words on the RMB are like a landscape painting of anti-counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting.

Third, China has always attached importance to the subtle publicity and education role of money in circulation. The ideological and political nature of the pattern was once an important theme, which was fully reflected in the pattern of the third set of RMB coupons. The characters on the vouchers are almost all workers and peasants, which have obvious characteristics of the times. The fourth set of RMB continues this feature. Except for the coupons of 5 yuan and 100 yuan, the number on each coupon is 14 of the number of ethnic minorities, which means great national unity. The fifth set of RMB was issued on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC). The head of Mao Zedong, the founding leader, appears on the pattern of RMB, and he is the most familiar leader of the whole country. It's hard to tell whether it's true or not. It gives up the people's great desire to miss the founding leaders, and it implies that China will continue to follow the socialist cause initiated by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. This is precisely the ideological and political nature of outstanding people.

In fact, the use of numbers in the currency pattern is not unique to the RMB. The patterns on the currency issued by many countries in the world, especially those with large denominations, are mostly portraits, which are the most familiar, well-known and famous figures of the people in the currency issuing countries. Most of them are leaders. For example, the characters on Vietnamese dong banknotes are like Ho Chi Minh; The characters on the highest denomination banknotes in won are like Kim Il Sung; The characters on the dollar bills are like several famous American presidents and so on.

People are used to choosing numbers as patterns on paper money, which not only plays an outstanding anti-counterfeiting role, but also has considerable appeal in economy and politics and can be accepted by all walks of life. Therefore, it can be said that in the future, when countries around the world issue new banknotes, graphic patterns will appear repeatedly and exist and develop as a trend, even until the physical currency disappears.