When the weather is good, turning the corner, you can often bump into the family of the person who holds the wedding. The front cover of the wedding car, under the eaves of the door, on the window glass, and the corner of the open hall are all vermilion, adding a little bit of festivity to the ground.
This kind of happy flower paper-cutting with the theme of double happy characters must be pasted in China for happy events, and even the emperor is not exempt from vulgarity. The Kunning Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing is often used as a cave house for the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, and the walls and ceilings of the palace are also pasted with Manchu-style dragon and phoenix patterns. It is also one of the most common paper cuts in people's daily lives.
Modern paper cuts
Image source | Photo network
As one of the national essences of China, although the art of paper-cutting is not among the top four, it cannot stand shoulder to shoulder with calligraphy, Peking Opera, Traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts, but it also penetrates into the hearts of thousands of chinese people with its strong national style and local atmosphere.
One piece of paper and one cut, the world is brilliant and dazzling.
The art of paper-cutting in China was first seen in historical records, and it has to start from Sima Qian's "History".
Sima Qian recorded the story of "Cutting Tong and Sealing Brothers" in the "History of the Jin Dynasty": "Cheng Wang and Shu Yu played, cut the tong leaves for Gui and Shu Yu, that is, sealed the rock with this." ”
This is said to be the fact that King Ji of the Western Zhou Dynasty plucked a piece of turquoise sycamore leaf, trimmed it into a pattern of Yu Gui, gave it to his younger brother Ji Yu, and made him a prince in the Tang Kingdom. Shen Yue, a great poet of the Southern Dynasty, also wrote a poem to record this story, saying: "Although the micro-leaves can be degraded, a cut or a gui." ”
Decoupage
Before Cai Lun invented papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the story of the tong-cut disciple can be seen as the prototype of paper-cutting.
When papermaking had not yet appeared, there were quite a few substitutes for paper, and there were also quite a lot of similarities in paper-cutting. In addition to sycamore leaves, other flake materials that can be used for cutting and skeletonizing include gold leaf, silver leaf, silk fabric, leather, pottery, bronze, and hemp paper (hemp fiber paper, the prototype of paper).
Hemp paper appeared in the Western Han Dynasty, the quantity was very small, the price was high and not popular, but Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty borrowed hemp paper to cut paper to solve acacia.
Make shadow puppets
Image source | Figureworm creative
According to legend, after the death of Lady Li, the favorite concubine of Emperor Wudi of Han, Emperor Wudi of Han was restless and could not eat well. In order to comfort Emperor Wu of Han, the warlock Li Shaoweng cut out the image of Lady Li with hemp paper, lit a lamp and candle at night, and projected the shadow in the square tent.
Emperor Wu of Han looked at the past from afar, and a beautiful woman in the candle shadow looked like Lady Li, but when she looked closer, she disappeared. Emperor Wu of Han wrote a poem for this purpose: "Yes, yes, and look forward to it, why is it too late?" ”
The earliest paper-cutting works found so far are hemp flower paper-cuttings from the Late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties. In 1967, archaeologists found five broken tuanhua paper cuts in the astana ancient tomb group near the Gaochang site in Xinjiang's Turpan Basin, which belonged to the folding type of sacrificial paper cuts.
Modern tuft flower paper cuts
This kind of paper-cutting with Buddhist connotations gradually developed into "merit flower paper". Since the introduction of Buddhism from the Eastern Han Dynasty to China, Buddhists have often used the art of paper-cutting to add pre-Buddhist ornaments and attract believers. The Jin Dynasty's "Fan Wang Ji Xinye Siju Biography" once recorded that "the family cuts the Buddha flower as a leaf", and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, on the day of the "ObanHui" of Buddhism on July 15, "Monks and nuns and Taoists are offered to the Buddhas... Widely decorated, even carved wood to cut bamboo, wax scissors, mold flowers and leaves, the journey, the most ingenious. ”
In the Tang Dynasty, paper-cutting gradually became popular and was in a period of great development. These customs were faithfully recorded in Tang poems:
"Warm water soaks my feet, and paper beckons my soul." (Du Fu's "Peng Ya Xing")
"If you want to cut the spring word, the spring cold into the scissors." (Cui Daorong," "Spring Girl II")
The Tang Dynasty Zhiwei novelist Duan Chengshi said in his short story collection "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks": "Standing on the spring day, the house of the scholar, the paper is cut into a small banner, or hanging on the head of a beautiful person, or embellished under a flower, and cut into a spring butterfly, and spring wins with drama." "It reveals the custom of cutting spring butterflies on the spring day of the Tang Dynasty.
Modern double swallow paper cut. Spring swallows and spring butterflies have similar meanings
In addition, during the Tang and Song dynasties, there was also the custom of "gold winning". "Victory" refers to the pattern cut and carved from paper or gold and silver foil and silk veil, and the pattern cut into square angle geometric shapes is called "Fang Sheng"; those cut into the shape of flowers and grasses are called "Hua (tonghua) Sheng"; those cut into human form are "people win".
The Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin wrote a poem "Human Day", in which it is said: "The gold is better than passing on the jing customs, and the ribbon cutting is the wind for people to rise up." "Among the cultural relics unearthed in Xinjiang in the 1960s, there is also a Tang Dynasty rensheng paper cut, with seven female humanoids arranged in rows, which are used for the bun ornament.
Qingming upper river map paper-cut works
When an art form emerges, it slowly evolves into a means for people to make a living, and the same is true for paper cutting. Industry entertainers who specialized in paper-cutting appeared during the Southern Song Dynasty.
According to the Southern Song Dynasty's great poet Zhou Mi in the miscellaneous book "The Past Affairs of Wulin", the Southern Song Dynasty's capital Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou) was very developed in commerce, and there were hundreds of "small economies" (that is, small businesses). Among them, there are those who specialize in "cutting patterns", some are good at cutting "calligraphy of all families", and some are specially cut "patterns of various colors".
In addition, shadow puppetry was prevalent in the Song Dynasty, and there were also shadow puppets made from paper, called "paper window shadows". Until now there are still shadow-like paper cuts in some areas.
Modern shadow puppetry
According to the same principle, in the Ming Dynasty, people fully mobilized their wisdom and wisdom and brought the beauty of paper-cutting to the extreme.
In the Ming Dynasty's "Suzhou Fuzhi", there is a description of the yarn lamp: "Jiajing made the yarn lamp, and the engraved paper was carved into the shape of flowers, bamboo, birds and birds. With the light thick cover color, molten wax slowly dyed, with a light Shao clip, the sun is bright and transparent, Fang Fei Xiang dances, trance in the light smoke, and the true one is indistinguishable. ”
That is, the carefully prepared paper cuts are sandwiched between the light and yarn, and the candlelight passes through the gap to reflect various patterns. Now people call this kind of lamp "marquee".
In addition, there is a yarn sandwich fan, that is, the fan is pasted on two sides of the cotton yarn, and the paper-cut pattern is embedded in the middle, which is also fresh and natural, and does not fall into the cliché.
Modern marquee
In the Qing Dynasty, the Manchus had the custom of paper-cutting, and paper-cutting entered the court. In addition to the kunning palace wedding, inseparable from the application of paper-cut horn flowers, there have also been people who have used paper to cut into deer, crane, pine "Liuhe Spring" pattern, painted, pasted on the imperial dress, even the Western Empress mistakenly thought it was embroidered, which shows the superb paper-cutting art at that time.
Paper-cutting integrates many folk arts, integrates composition, modeling and decorative craftsmanship in one furnace, and is deeply loved by the public and artists. Today, Chinese paper-cutting is not only all over the country, but also popular overseas.
As the saying goes, one side of the water and soil to support the other side, regional differences, different customs, but also make the paper-cutting style very different and have their own advantages. In this regard, Guo Moruo Zengyun: "I have seen the window flowers of the northern country, the smell is innocent and thick, and now I see the paper-cutting in the south, which is exquisite and clear; the cleverness of a cut is immortal in the folk." ”
Traditional paper-cut window flowers
Folk paper-cutting can be roughly divided into three schools according to different styles: the north school, the south school and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang schools.
Generally speaking, the Northern School is known for its rough and bold, thick and simple, and concise shape, such as the paper-cutting in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia, which pays attention to the thick and powerful lines, simple and generous.
The Shaanxi paper-cutting of the Eight Hundred Mile Qinchuan River, with its highly recognizable color of red and green, has succeeded in making people unforgettable. Shaanxi paper-cutting also has the reputation of "living fossils", because it more completely inherits the ancient modeling patterns of the Chinese nation, such as the fish body and human face, the sphinx and the head, the "catching bun doll" similar to the Zhou culture, the "cattle cultivation map" similar to the Han portrait, and so on. It contains the Yin and Yang philosophical ideas of the Chinese nation and the concept of fertility worship.
Modern paper cuts
The paper-cutting in the coastal area of Jiaodong, Shandong, is mainly based on lines and surfaces, which is in line with the subtle and complicated style of Han Dynasty portraits. Its dense decorative means make the simple and refreshing appearance appear more full and rich. The people of Jiaodong, Shandong Province, call the skillful woman a "trickster", and no matter which village the "trickster" is in, it is something that people are proud of. According to the fact that the windows in Jiaodong are mostly slender strips of lattice, the women use the method of fragmentation, divide the large composition into strips and cut them out, and then paste them on the window to form a complete picture.
Looking to the south, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang school paper-cutting represented by Jiangsu and Zhejiang tends to be dense and smooth, exquisite and bright, and pay attention to the fine and beautiful lines.
In Jiangsu, the representative of paper-cutting art wants to see Yangzhou. Yangzhou is also one of the earliest areas where paper-cutting is popular in China. 1400 years ago, the Sui Dynasty Emperor Yang Guang repaired the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, visited Yangzhou three times, and built a palace annex every time he traveled, and played freely. After the trees in the palace withered in autumn and winter, the Sui Emperor ordered the palace ladies to imitate the folk paper-cutting, cut the color silk for flowers and leaves to decorate the branches, and replace the old color with the new one, so that the scenery is often like the spring of the sun. The pond also removes ice cubes and cuts of colored silk to make lotus flowers, lotus leaves, and other arrangements.
Handmade paper cut artist
According to the Ming Dynasty miscellaneous work Wulin Fanzhi, a grand paper-cut landscape appeared on the land of Wuyue in the fifth dynasty: "King Wuyue Qian on the day of his auspicious deeds... Hundreds of households outside the city, without hanging brocade, are cut with colored paper to replace people and horses. ”
In the Yongkang area of Jinhua, Zhejiang, he is good at using paper cuts to express opera stories, usually intercepting typical scene plots in plays. In order to distinguish it from opera, paper-cutting and appropriate background are used as a background, highlighting the advantages of paper-cutting as a specific artistic language.
In addition, Zhejiang paper-cutting pays attention to the large image contour, and at the same time carves a fine yin line in the image, which just enhances the sense of structural image and the rhythm of the picture.
Opera paper cuts
The southern style represented by Guangdong, Fujian and other places is more delicate and beautiful, exquisite and transparent, and the works are mostly concentrated on small and exquisite animals and birds, and combined with the technique of origami, the paper-cutting works have a three-dimensional sense.
Guangdong paper-cutting is the most representative of Foshan paper-cutting, which originated from the Song Dynasty and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with a long history. Since the Ming Dynasty, Foshan paper-cutting has been produced in a large number of special industries, and the products are exported to southeastern countries. The vast majority of the themes of Foshan paper-cutting are flowers, birds, insects and fish, opera characters and folk tales, such as "dragon and phoenix", "carp", "peacock", "hehe two immortals", "six kingdoms sealing phase", "Chang'e running moon", "eight immortals in the East China Sea" and so on. One of the most local features is the copper chisel paper cut, which is particularly dazzling and magnificent.
Carp paper cuts
Paper-cutting in various parts of Fujian has its own characteristics, the mountainous areas are mainly depicting mountain poultry and livestock, the coastal areas are often seen in the painting of aquatic animals, and the Putian and Xianyou areas are mainly gift flowers.
In addition to the three major factions in a broad sense, other distinctive local paper-cuttings have emerged on the vast land of China.
Hebei Weixian paper-cutting is unique among many paper-cuttings in the country with its unique production process. Because the paper-cutting in Wei County is not "cut", but "carved". It is made of thin rice paper as raw material, carved with a small and sharp carving knife, and then dyed with bright and brilliant colors. The whole process has six processes of painting, ordering, dipping, engraving, dyeing and wrapping, that is, the so-called "yang carving sees the knife, yin carves see the color, should be shaped, and color is applied with the class".
Wei County, Hebei
The "Golden Bull Diagram" paper-cutting and "Sick Doll" paper-cutting in Lingbao County, Henan Province, are also very distinctive. "Sending sick dolls" refers to cutting two bun dolls, one hand holding peaches, the other holding a knife, male dolls are sick to cut men's bun dolls, female dolls are sick to cut women's bun dolls. When the illness is almost better, he cuts two people carrying pomegranates and a bun doll with a knife in one hand. The locals explained: "The peach is to exorcise demons, and the knife is to curse people." Whoever calls his child sick will curse whomever he wants, whoever asks for it will cut it, and when the illness changes from severe to light, he will cut the pomegranate, which means that the descendants can continue again. (Pomegranates generally symbolize many children and many blessings.) ）
The paper-cutting of Ansai in northern Shaanxi is a model for working women to create beauty. Anse paper-cuts were originally used to decorate dusty caves and beautify the home, from flowers, birds, insects, fish, melons, fruits and vegetables, to livestock, character trees, all the beauty in nature, very grounded!
The ethnic minority areas in southwest China are mainly paper-cutting of the Yunnan-Guizhou ethnic minority, and attention is paid to clothing cuts, and paper-cutting is often integrated with embroidery patterns. In addition, religious beliefs in the southwest region have obviously infiltrated the artistic creation of paper-cutting. Ethnic minority paper-cutting is often an ideographic hieroglyph, and a leaping choice is adopted in the application of the usual thinking space, from which the refraction of ethnic history, ethnic migration, folk life and the expression of the national soul can be found.
Through a variety of paper-cutting, we can see the various faces of life, and we can taste the sour, sweet, bitter and spicy of life.
In the past, the wooden lattice windows in the north were mostly made of white paper paste, and every year during the Spring Festival, a new paper was replaced, and brightly colored window flower paper cuts were installed, and the new spring atmosphere was transmitted from the new window flowers and the fiery red spring union.
Cut paper window flowers
Window flower is the most widely distributed, the largest number and the most popular variety in folk paper-cutting, and other paper-cutting varieties are developed and extended on the basis of window flowers. Window flowers can be adapted to the window conditions, and the appropriate pattern is selected.
Most of the windows in Shandong are straight, so the window flowers in Shandong are mostly straight. The northwest window has a cross grid in the center, so the window flower also divides the paper cut into four large pieces. Hunan window flowers also have their fixed combination form, generally the center paste double happy group flower, four corners paste butterfly horn flower, the group flower on both sides with a pair of joy candles and flower basket plate flowers.
As for the theme of window flowers, they are more extensive and diverse, often with the themes of "festive and auspicious", "good year for rui", "grain abundance", "prosperity of people and animals", "more than one year in a row", "osmanthus flowers and birds", and "dragon and phoenix xiangxiang" is the eternal theme loved by folk art.
In addition to window flowers, where there is a need for decoration, where there is a need for auspicious atmosphere, there is paper cutting. A wall flower is pasted on the wall, a cluster of flowers is attached to the utensils of the container, a hanging note is attached to the lintel beam, and so on.
In addition to this type of hi-flower paper-cutting, there are also funeral paper-cutting and shouhua paper-cutting.
The simplest ones are copper coin paper cuts at funerals, and the more complex ones are hanging coins inserted at the tomb during the Qingming Festival (cut into a hollowed out long strip shape with white paper cut in the middle, and the copper coin pattern of the outer circle and the inner square is cut in the middle). Among the gifts offered, many are made of various colors of paper cut and pasted, such as soul flags, cash cows, gold and silver buckets, cornucopias, seasonal flowers, carriages and horses, bridges, etc., collectively known as paper ties.
The shouhua paper cut is represented by the Fushou lihua in Lijiang, Yunnan. The Naxi people are a people who respect the elderly, and the Fushou lihua is the product of that custom of respecting the elderly. It is specially used for the elderly to celebrate life, and the common ones are wufu bouquet shou, plum blossom boo shou, fu shou double complete, long foot shou character, square shou word, round shou word and so on.
Shou word paper cut
Foreign countries call Chinese folk paper-cutting as women's art, paper-cutting and embroidery, women are undoubtedly the main creators. The product of embroidery samples appears in the interaction between paper-cutting and embroidery. In the past, there were paper-cutting artists who specialized in the production of patterns in villages. Most of this type of paper cut is very finely cut, and the needle path and the boundary of color are clearly explained with hidden dots and hidden lines. The artistic standard of these embroidery samples is very high, and the ornamental value is also extremely high.
In September 2009, the art of paper-cutting was selected into UNESCO's "Representative Works of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity", and Chinese paper-cutting has become the common intangible cultural heritage of mankind in the world.
Vintage paper-cut shop
Today, paper-cutting is widely used in various fields involving decoration, such as costume design, ceramic decoration, decoration of film and television drama stage backgrounds, as well as newspapers, books, stamps, greeting card design, commercial advertising and other aspects, which are closely related to people's lives.
Modern window flowers
There are also countless folk paper-cutting proverbs and ballads that are popular everywhere. As the paper-cut folk song in Pizhou, Jiangsu Province, sings:
Small scissors, how useful,
Can cut dragons, can cut phoenixes, can cut rats to make holes.
Can cut mountains, can cut water,
Can cut duck flat beak.
Can cut chickens, can cut geese,
Can cut carp to play the heavenly river.
Little scissors, how capable,
Cut what, what becomes.
Cut another evergreen tree,
10,000 years blue, blue,
Family happiness is passed down from generation to generation...
On a sunny day, when you take to the streets again and see the almost ubiquitous paper-cut shadow in your life, will it have a little more strange familiarity?
Modern paper-cutting art
Resources:
1. Sky in the Clouds: Paper Cutting, Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House, 2006
2. Zhang Yunxian: Paper Cutting, Ningxia People's Publishing House, 2016
3. Cao Guohong: Paper-cutting Techniques, Southwest Jiaotong University Press, 2016
4. Hangzhou Arts and Crafts Museum, ed., Paper Cutting, Zhejiang People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2018