Shadow play is a folk art in which province?

Shadow play is a folk art in Shaanxi Province.

China's traditional shadow play art is one of the earliest operas in China, and it can be called the originator of today's film and television art. According to historical records, shadow play began in the pre-Qin Dynasty (Shaanxi), flourished in the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Song Dynasty, spread to West Asia and Europe in the Yuan Dynasty, and flourished in Hebei in the Qing Dynasty.

Shadow play, also known as "shadow play" or "light shadow play", is a kind of folk drama that uses animal skins or cardboard as adults to perform stories. During the performance, the artists manipulated the shadow puppeteers behind the white curtain, telling stories with local popular tunes, accompanied by percussion instruments and strings, which had a strong local flavor. Its popularity is extremely extensive, and various shadow plays are formed due to different voices played in different places.

Shadow play production

China has a vast territory, and shadow plays in different places have their own characteristics. However, the production procedures of shadow play are mostly the same. Usually, it is a complicated and wonderful process to go through eight processes, such as skin selection, skin making, draft drawing, manuscript passing, engraving, coloring, sweating and ironing, and hand carving more than 3,000 knives. The artistic creativity of shadow play draws lessons from the techniques and styles of silk paintings, stone reliefs, brick reliefs and temple murals in the Tang and Song Dynasties in China.

The production process is as follows: firstly, clean the hair and blood of sheepskin, donkey skin or other animal skins, then treat the leather with drugs to make it thin and translucent, and then coat it with tung oil. Then, the artist draws maps of various characters on it, carves them with various knives, and then paints them with colors, mainly five solid colors, such as red, yellow, cyan, green and black.