Chinese paper cutting is a folk art in which patterns are cut or engraved on paper with scissors or engraving knives and used to decorate life or cooperate with other folk activities. In China, paper cutting has a wide mass base and is integrated into the social life of people of all ethnic groups. It is an important part of various folk activities. The inherited visual images and modeling formats contain rich cultural and historical information and express the social cognition, moral concepts, practical experience, life ideals and aesthetic tastes of the general public. It has multiple social values such as cognition, enlightenment, ideographic expression, lyricism, entertainment and communication.
The invention of paper was in the Western Han Dynasty before Christ. Before that, there could be no appearance of paper cutting art. However, at that time, people used thin sheet materials to make handicrafts through the technique of hollowed-out engraving. This was already popular before the appearance of paper. That is, patterns were cut and engraved on gold foil, leather, silk, and even leaves by using the techniques of carving, hollowing out, picking, engraving and cutting.
The account of ‘Cutting Tong to Confer a Title to a Younger Brother’ in ‘Historical Records’ records that in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, King Cheng of Zhou cut phoenix tree leaves into ‘jade tablets’ and bestowed them on his younger brother, conferring Ji Yu as the marquis of Tang. In the Warring States Period, there was leather cutwork (one of the unearthed cultural relics from No. 1 Chu tomb at Wangshan, Jiangling, Hubei), and silver foil hollowed-out engraved patterns (one of the unearthed cultural relics from Guwei Village, Huixian, Henan), which are all the same as paper cutting.
Their appearances have laid a certain foundation for the formation of folk paper cutting. In the Tang Dynasty, paper cutting was already in a period of great development. In Du Fu’s poem ‘A Trip to Pengya’, there is a sentence ‘Warm soup washes my feet, and paper cutting summons my soul’. The custom of summoning souls with paper cutting had already spread among the people at that time. The Tang Dynasty paper cuttings currently stored in the British Museum can all show that the level of paper cutting handicraft art was extremely high at that time.
The picture composition is complete and expresses an ideal realm between heaven and earth. In the Tang Dynasty, ‘Xie’ was popular. The patterns of its carved wooden boards had the characteristics of paper cutting. For example, ‘Pair of Sheep’ currently stored in the Shosoin Repository in Japan. The pattern of the sheep is a typical expression technique of paper cutting handicraft. In the Tang Dynasty, leaky printing plates made in the form of paper cutting also appeared among the people.
People carved thick paper into printing plates and printed dyes on cloth to form beautiful patterns. In the Song Dynasty, the papermaking industry was mature and there were many kinds of paper. This provided conditions for the popularization of paper cutting. For example, ‘gift paper cuttings’ that became folk gifts, ‘window decorations’ pasted on windows, or used for the decoration of lanterns and tea cups.
The application scope of folk paper cutting in the Song Dynasty gradually expanded. Jizhou Kiln in Jiangxi used paper cutting as the pattern of ceramics. Through glazing and firing, ceramics became more exquisite. Folk people also used the form of paper cutting to carve animal skins such as donkey, ox, horse and sheep into character models for shadow puppetry. The engraved plate making process of blue printed cloth is to engrave patterns on oiled cardboard.
The pattern of the printing plate for scraping paste and printing is made by using the technique of paper cutting. There are intaglio and relief engravings. Long lines need to be cut off, and the distinction between virtual and real is made by dots.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, paper-cutting handicraft art matured and reached its peak. The application range of folk paper-cutting handicraft art is even wider. For example, the flower decorations on folk lanterns, the patterns on fan surfaces, and the patterns of embroidery are all decorated and reprocessed by using paper-cutting. More often, Chinese folk people often use paper-cutting as decorations for homes to beautify the home environment.
Door signs, window grilles, cabinet flowers, happy flowers, and ceiling flowers are all paper-cuts used to decorate doors, windows, and rooms. In the 1940s, paper-cuts with real-life themes began to appear. In 1942, Mao Zedong’s “Speech at the Yan’an Literature and Art Symposium” pointed out the literary and artistic policy of “literature and art serving workers, peasants, and soldiers”. Since then, artists such as Chen Shuliang, Zhang Ding, Li Qun, Gu Yuan, and Xia Feng from the Lu Xun Institute of Arts in Yan’an began to learn folk paper-cutting with a deep mass base in the local area.
They collected, excavated, sorted out, and studied folk paper-cutting, and created a large number of new paper-cuts reflecting the production, life, and battles of the people in the border areas. The works use traditional folk styles and describe new contents of the Anti-Japanese War and the construction of the border areas. It promoted the creation and development of mass paper-cutting and brought revolutionary changes to traditional folk paper-cutting.
In 1944, new folk paper-cut works in the northwest region were exhibited for the first time in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, which kicked off the development of paper-cut art after the founding of New China. It can be said that paper-cutting in Yan’an has created a new era for Chinese paper-cutting. After the founding of New China, under the guidance of the literary and artistic policy of “letting a hundred flowers blossom and weeding through the old to bring forth the new”, artists created a large number of new paper-cuts showing new people and new things in socialism, opening up the road for paper-cut creation and also enriching the forms and contents of Chinese folk decorative art.
In the creation of new paper-cuts, in addition to paper-cuts showing the new atmosphere of all walks of life, children, sports, acrobatics, singing and dancing have also become the most common themes of paper-cuts. Methods and skills of paper-cutting: 1. Folding: Folding paper to produce repeated patterns is the most basic one among paper-cutting techniques and also an expression method used in monochrome paper-cutting.
The different effects it produces depend on the number of folds and angles. When using this technique to cut flowers, the paper can be folded twice or three times before cutting. The resulting patterns are in the shape of being even on four or six sides. If cutting animals or figures, the shape after cutting once by folding is left-right symmetrical. Due to the strong symmetry of folded paper-cutting patterns, the resulting graphics have a stronger sense of rhythm.
This technique is mostly used for cutting happy character flowers and ceiling flowers.
2. Yin and Yang engraving: The basic effect of paper-cutting is obtained by using yin and yang lines alone or in combination. Yin engraving, also known as engraving, is a method of cutting away the outline lines representing the structure of objects and expressing lines in large areas. This effect is thick, solid, and has a strong sense of weight. There is a strong sense of black-and-white contrast. The blank spaces cut away form patterns, and the lines are not connected to each other.
Yang engraving, also known as openwork carving, is just the opposite of yin engraving. It is to carve away the blank parts and retain the contour lines. The lines of the pattern are solid and connected line by line. This method is smooth, clear, delicate and exquisite.
The combination of yin and yang is the best expression technique of paper-cutting. The two methods of yin and yang engraving appear in the same work, making the composition diverse. The contrast between black, white and gray in the picture is distinct. It is a very expressive paper-cutting technique.
III. Piercing. Use a knife or scissors to cut out the basic outline on paper, and then pierce holes in the pattern with a needle. The main purpose is to connect multiple layers of paper. At the same time, it is delicate in roughness. This technique is often used for embroidery patterns. Sometimes the patterns are symmetrical, such as pillow flowers, shoe flowers, sleeve flowers, etc. When 2 to 4 identical paper patterns are needed, rice paper is often used for cutting and piercing.
After completion, (unclear term, not translated), and there will be multiple identical paper patterns at the same time. Rice paper is used because it is easy to stick and is thin. When used as a cushion for embroidery, it will not affect the aesthetic feeling. Using a fast and simple stapler and staples can also achieve the effect of connecting multiple layers of paper.
Folk paper-cutting is good at combining multiple images together and producing ideal beautiful results. Whether using one or more images in combination, it is all about shaping with ‘using images to imply meaning’ and ‘constructing images with meaning’, rather than shaping according to objective natural forms. At the same time, it is also good at creating various mascots with the technique of analogy and association, and combining the stereotyped images to express one’s own psychology.
Pursuing auspicious meanings has become one of the ultimate goals of image combination. Due to the isolation of regions and limitations of culture, as well as the intrusion of adversities such as natural disasters, people are inspired to yearn for a happy and prosperous life. People pray for abundant food and clothing, prosperity of population, health and longevity, and all the best. This simple wish is conveyed through paper-cutting.
In folk paper-cutting, there are many pictures reflecting production and life. These works have one greatest similarity, that is, the exaggeration of the subject. Big fish, big peppers, big silkworms, big grains, etc. Through paper-cutting, people have created beautiful images to comfort their souls and show off people’s great creativity in conquering nature, in order to establish their own ideal world and affirm people’s strength and inspire people’s courage to continue to struggle.
