Basic characteristics and manifestations of folk paper-cutting.

Basic characteristics of paper-cutting

The reason why folk paper-cutting can go through the long historical evolution of China without losing its purity and freshness is closely related to the stable social and cultural structure in rural areas of China. Its own contradictory and unified characteristics determine its natural selection method for the ever-changing side, thus opening a gap with court art and literati art.

Paper-cut of Buddha statue

1. Unity of Dependence and Independence

Folk paper-cutting is a necessary artistic activity in line with folk customs. Its existence must depend on people's specific cultural background and living environment. There are white things at home, and the windows can't stick out great prosperity; The doll is not sick, and the grandmother refuses to cut a string of little people who hang their souls; Used to decorate gifts to see if it is a wedding, funeral or birthday; If the old couple put up a pair of wedding flowers at home, it must be a joke of young people; If there is no rain after a long drought, many people will curse it if it is not the "only daughter" who beats a wooden stick for rain, but the "lady sweeping the sky" who asks for sunshine. This dependent feature, which is restricted by the purpose of existence, is manifested in the composition treatment of specific works, that is, the decorative characteristics of works. Such as hanging door tags, bowl racks, clouds, etc. , must be connected by wire; Sticking the window requires sticking to the pane and hollowing it out, otherwise it will only look like a big piece of paper in the light; It is best to cut less fragmentary patterns when sticking around the kang, otherwise it will be damaged easily after a long time.

Many restrictions have also formed a unique language in art. Folk paper-cutting not only completes some folk functions, but also shows its independence-that is, the characteristics of beauty in its existence. No matter what occasion a paper-cut is used for, the author should pay attention to his own aesthetic feelings in the process of creation. As long as people use the standard of beauty to affirm it, it also has the aesthetic value of existence. Of course, the independence of folk paper-cutting does not restrict folk customs, but completely controls the free will of folk customs. Therefore. Its existence value also goes beyond the behavioral purpose of setting off folk customs.

This artistic independence is becoming more and more obvious with the changes of society and the gradual disappearance of old folk customs.

2. Unity of collectivity and individuality

In an absolute sense, any artistic creation cannot be simply considered as a purely personal product. People's social attributes inevitably reflect the artistic interest of a certain class. Personality is only developed on the basis of collectivity or tradition.

The collective characteristics of folk paper-cutting are obviously manifested in the final ownership of its works. Works are no longer the author's private property, but belong to the whole society and collective. Therefore, its final appearance must be the product of directly concentrating the wisdom of the masses and integrating the artistic talent and aesthetic preferences of thousands of people. In particular, some works that have been solidified over the years, after repeated carving and revision by generations, have basically taken shape and are generally recognized, circulated and preserved. For example, the prototypes of chariots, horses and weaving cannot be studied in detail. There are similar works circulating all over the country, and they are very different. It is hard to say which one is entirely created by one author. Then, an important reason for the formation of collectivity should be the anonymity of folk paper-cutting. Folk art is different from the creation of professional artists. The work does not indicate the author's name, nor does it have personal copyright. Good works spread around the world, and once spread, they become the source of a large number of plagiarism and variation works, and the author has integrated into the group concept of "laborer".

It is true that this kind of worker art without personal utility is indeed based on the solid collective consciousness of folk culture, but this is not enough to deny the artistic personality of folk paper-cut artists. Just as professional artists strive for artistic self-expression, but they will never lose their position in society and history, folk paper-cutting will certainly not lose their artistic self while expressing the national collective psychological consciousness. If the personality expression of literati artists is "the ego deliberately pursues the position in the' big ego'", then the personality expression of folk paper-cut artists is the natural expression of the ego in the' big ego'. Not to mention the artistic styles and characteristics of the east, west, north and south regions, together with the works of different authors in a region, they obviously have their own obvious personalities. If you look at flowers with contempt, it is naturally difficult to see through them.

Take the skillful hands of Zhang and Wang Lanpan in northern Shaanxi as examples. They are only a hundred miles apart, close in age and basically the same in customs and habits. Zhang's family was rich since childhood, and he liked to watch plays and listen to books, and was educated by the feudal middle class ethics. But he suffered all his life, lost his husband three times, got married four times, and gave birth to 13 children, all of which died. Therefore, the external character is melancholy, withdrawn, not talkative and idealistic about life. His creation is "forgetting chaos" and is rarely interfered by others. It can be seen that the burning pain in the heart is contradictory to its hidden character. In the process of creation, I am eager to achieve psychological balance through emotional venting. On the shore of Wang Lan, she felt that "people should be busy when they are alive, so that they can be happy." I don't expect much from life and the world, but pay attention to my contribution to society, which belongs to the type of "contented people are happy". His wife, Li Xinan, is a distinguished minister. She introduced apples to the northern Shaanxi Plateau, but she never expected anything in return. Therefore, his personality is cheerful and lively, straightforward and open-minded, confident and willful, positive and always informal. She cut the flowers because "I was asked to cut them, which means I cut them well. This is a compliment." If you can't do anything else, you can hinge a flower, which will be beautiful in your heart. "It can be seen that his inner world tends to emphasize self-worth. In their works, there are personal images with clear shadows, which can be described as "painting as a person". The existence of this personality not only conforms to the collective characteristics of local cultural traditions, but also makes no secret of the author's spiritual world, which is in sharp contrast with the hesitation and groaning in the performance of literati art and court art.

For a long time, folk paper-cutting has been regarded as repetitive work or the reproduction of traditional patterns, ignoring the personality creation of workers and artists, which is unfair in history.

paper cutting

3. Unity of variability and stability

After all, not every professional woman who cuts paper and engraves paper can reach artistic maturity. A village, a ravine, produces one or several talented people who are recognized by the society, and their works will naturally spread everywhere. Its transmission mode is one of sampling books and the other is memory simulation. In circulation, it is often the daughter-in-law of the Zhang family who uses the appearance of the daughter-in-law of the Li family, and the daughter of the Wang family passes on the pattern to her husband's family named Liu. People have the right to modify manuscripts at will according to their own ideals and aesthetic hobbies. The original form of the work will inevitably change. This variation in inheritance is also constantly adjusting the differences between folk paper-cutting and its communication times, nationalities, regions and customs.

At the same time, due to the inheritance of folk forms, the relatively fixed stylization of basic patterns and the transmission of inheritance methods from generation to generation, folk paper-cutting has relatively stable external formal characteristics. Some works are equivalent to the repertoire of China traditional operas. Where a line is missing and an action is missing, it will cause an uproar in the audience and cannot be changed casually. Folk paper-cutting often has this situation: a good work, after a clumsy person turned into an ugly paper, after an experienced old woman's hand, made it glow again.

The variability and stability of folk paper-cut inheritance are closely related to the traditional rural cultural structure in China. Therefore, the occurrence of a great social change will inevitably lead to the fluctuation and adjustment of cultural psychology in different regions and nationalities. Therefore, excavating and sorting out folk art, including folk paper-cutting, should be an important topic for artists with a sense of national responsibility today.

Paper-cut forms of expression

Paper-cutting is a kind of folk art, which takes paper as the processing object and scissors (or carving knife) as the tool to create.

Every art has its own unique artistic style. Because of the materials (paper) and tools (scissors and carving knives) used in paper cutting, paper cutting has its own artistic style. Paper-cut art is a kind of folk art that is easy to learn but difficult to master. Most of the authors come from rural women and folk artists. Because they take what they see and hear in real life as the theme, and observe things according to simple feelings and intuitive impressions, they have formed a special style of paper-cutting art, which embodies the unpretentious spirit of farmers. Summarize past experience from the following aspects:

1. The line is connected, but the line is broken.

Because paper-cut works are cut out or carved out on paper, we should take the method of hollowing out. Because of hollowing out, paper-cuts with public lines must be connected with lines, and paper-cuts with bus lines must be disconnected with lines. If you cut off some lines, the whole paper-cut will be fragmented and deformed. Thus, there is a structure that does not fall or cut. This is an important feature of the art of paper-cutting, which pays great attention to lines, because the picture of paper-cutting is composed of lines. According to practical experience, the lines of paper-cutting can be summarized into five words: "round, sharp, square, missing and line". Requirements: "Round as autumn moon, sharp as wheat awn, square as blue brick, lacking as sawtooth, walking like beard." It can be said that lines are the basis of paper-cut modeling.

2. The patterning of composition modeling

Paper-cutting is different from other paintings in composition. "It is difficult to show the overlap of three-dimensional space, scene and image, and it often breaks through the proportion and perspective relationship between objects and images. The content is mainly based on the connection of images, and more combinations are used. Due to the exaggerated deformation in modeling, it can also use some laws of formal beauty of patterns to make symmetry, uniformity, balance, combination and continuity. It can arrange the sun, moon, stars, birds and clouds on the same picture, just like buildings, people and animals on the ground. Common ones are "layers of high bases" or "borrowing things for scenery".

3. The image is exaggerated, concise, beautiful and full of rhythm.

Due to the limitation of tools and materials, it is required that paper-cutting should not only grasp the characteristics of the object, but also link the lines with nature when processing images. Therefore, we can't adopt naturalistic realism. It is required to pay attention to the main part of the image and boldly give up the secondary part to make the main body clear at a glance. The figure should be prominent, forming a simple and generous aesthetic feeling, the posture of the object should be exaggerated, the action should be big, the posture should be beautiful, just like the appearance on the stage, full of rhythm.

4. Simple and bright colors

The color requirements of paper-cutting are simple and complicated, and less configuration of the same color, similar color and adjacent color. Seek harmony in contrasting colors. At the same time pay attention to the proportion of colors. If a main color is used to form the main color, the contrast of other colors will be weakened to varying degrees. Sometimes when the colors are juxtaposed and feel a little stiff, they are put in black respectively. In the main manuscript of the golden section, you can get a harmonious and lively feeling.

5. Knife should be "steady, accurate and skillful"

Many characteristics and styles of folk paper-cutting are due to certain knife skills, such as "Hundred Flowers Map" created by Zhang Yongshou, which is used in many places. For example, a chrysanthemum engraved with "arhat beard" is straight when it first opens and curled when it is in full bloom, forming a spiral circle. When cutting this kind of chrysanthemum, it needs to be cut from the inside out, and the petals can curl freely after cutting, so as to form a chrysanthemum with unique image and flavor.

If you carve a kind of chrysanthemum called "Egret Feather", because when it blooms, one petal is covered with another petal, and the other petal is hooked with another petal, you should use the "cutting method" to cut this chrysanthemum. The cut parts should be connected one by one, and the petals should follow one by one, so that the petals can vary in thickness and size, and the cut flowers can be as full and beautiful as the feathers of egrets.

When carving a large number of paper-cuts at the same time, in the use of knife method, whether it is cut or not, the cut paper-cuts should be thick. When using a knife, you must cut it up and down like a hacksaw in your hand, and the force should be rigid and even, otherwise the knife will lose its flexibility thousands of miles away. Be careful not to swing back and forth from left to right. Hold the knife vertically up and down, and the carved paper-cut will be accurate. When cutting paper, both cutting and lifting should be accurate, especially where the knives are connected. Just say it and you can cut it. Here we go. Otherwise, the lines are easily cut or torn by the knife.

"Qiao" here mainly refers to the "sawtooth" and "crescent" carved with a clever knife. These are two very important knife methods in paper cutting. If these two knife methods are used properly, the unique "knife-like paper feeling" of paper-cutting art can be formed.