China traditional folk culture articles [more than 253 words]

China Traditional Culture —— Paper-cut Art

Paper-cutting is one of the most popular folk arts in China. According to archaeology, its history can be traced back to the 6th century. Paper-cutting is often used in religious ceremonies, decoration and plastic arts.

In the past, people often used paper to make objects and portraits of different shapes, buried them with the dead or burned them at funerals, and also used them as decorations to worship ancestors and immortals. This custom is still common in rural funerals.

Nowadays, paper-cutting is more used for decoration. Paper-cutting can be used to decorate walls, doors and windows, columns, mirrors, lamps and so on. It can also be used as a gift decoration, and even the paper-cut itself can be given as a gift to others. People used to use paper-cutting as a model for embroidery and painting. ...

The most common thing people do is to stick paper-cuts on the windows for decoration. This paper-cut is called window grilles. People put up new window grilles on their windows during festivals to show that they can bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. On weddings and other festive days, people will also hang window grilles of blessings to show good luck and happiness. There are many forms of window grilles, such as corner grilles at the four corners of decorative panes, flowers with broken branches, various freely adapted patterns, such as animals, flowers and figures, and continuous sets of opera or legendary window grilles.

China's paper-cutting art is well-known overseas, and many of his works have high appreciation value and collection value. During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a paper-cut artist in Xianyang skillfully combined the paper-cut art with the Olympic Movement, carefully created a series of works of "Paper Olympics", and was also designated as a gift for the Olympic Games.