History of Paper Cutting in China

The invention of paper was in the Western Han Dynasty (6th century B.C.), before which the art of paper-cutting was impossible, but at that time, people used thin sheet materials to make handicrafts by hollowing out and carving techniques, which were popular as early as when there was no paper, i.e., carving, hollowing out, picking, engraving, and scissor-cutting techniques were used in the gold leaf, leather, silk, and even in the leaves of the tree to cut and carve patterns. The Historical Records of the cutting of the Tong Feng Di described the early Western Zhou Dynasty King Cheng with the sycamore leaves cut into the "Gui" given to his brother, sealed Ji Yu to Tang as a marquis. During the Warring States period, there is leather skeletonization, (Hubei Jiang Ling Wangshan one of the Chu Tomb unearthed artifacts), silver foil skeletonization engraved (Henan Huixian solid surrounding the village of the Warring States site of one of the artifacts unearthed), with paper-cutting and a withdrawal, their emergence for the formation of folk paper-cutting to lay the foundation for a certain degree.

The North and South Dynasties period, "Mulan Diction" in the poem "to the mirror to paste flowers yellow" . The earliest discovery of paper-cutting in China is the discovery of five flower cutouts from the Northern Dynasties (386-581 AD) unearthed near the Flaming Mountain in Turpan, Xinjiang. These paper cuttings, the use of repetitive folding and the treatment of the image does not cover each other .

The Tang Dynasty paper-cutting has been in a period of great development, Du Fu "Peng Nga line" poem has "warm soup wash my feet, Jian paper to attract my soul" sentence, to cut paper to attract the soul of the custom of the folk at that time has been spread. Now hidden in the British Museum of the Tang Dynasty paper cutting can be seen at the time of paper-cutting handmade art level has been extremely high, the picture composition is complete, expressing a kind of heaven and earth ideal realm. Tang dynasty popular jie, its openwork woodblock pattern with paper-cutting characteristics, such as now hidden in Japan's Masakura Yard of the "sheep", the pattern of the sheep is a typical paper-cutting handmade art expression. Tang dynasty folk also appeared in the form of paper cuts using the production of leakage plate printing plate, people with thick paper carved into flower plate, the dye leakage printed on the cloth, forming beautiful patterns. In addition, in Dunhuang Mogao Caves also unearthed in the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties paper cuts, such as "Double Deer Pagoda", "group tower and deer", "pagoda" and so on belong to the "merit flower paper" category, mainly used to honor the Buddha, decorating the temple, the dojo. Its picture composition is complex, with specific content, and there are also "standing statue of Bodhisattva", "standing statue of Bodhisattva holding a streamer" and other ink painting hollow paper-cutting, which is a combination of paper-cutting and painting works. Southern Song Dynasty, has appeared to paper-cutting as a profession of the industry artists. According to the Song Zhou Mi, "Old Story of Wulin" recorded that at this time in Hangzhou, "small economy" up to hundreds of kinds. Among them, there are specialized in "cut arrowhead pattern", some good at cutting "all the family book word", some special cut "all colors pattern".

The Song Dynasty paper industry is mature, a wide range of paper products, for the popularity of paper-cutting provides the conditions. Such as becoming a gift of folk "gift flowers", pasted on the window "window flowers", or used for lanterns, tea decorations. Song dynasty folk paper cutting the use of gradually expanding the scope of Jiangxi Jizhou kilns will be paper cutting as a ceramic pattern, through the glaze, firing to make ceramics more exquisite; folk also use paper cutting in the form of donkeys, cows, horses, goats and other animal skin, carved into shadow play figures; blue printed fabric crafting skeletonization plate is made of oil on cardboard carving into patterns, scraping the pattern of the printing of the plate is to use the technique of paper cutting, there are yin, Yang carved points, long lines to be cut, to point the virtual and real. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the art of paper-cutting became mature and reached its heyday. Folk paper-cutting handmade art is used in a wider range, such as folk lanterns on the flower decoration, fan decoration, as well as embroidery patterns, etc., are not the use of paper-cutting as a decorative into the reprocessing. More often than not, Chinese folk will often be paper cut as decorative home ornaments, beautify the home environment, such as door stacks, window flowers, cabinet flowers, happy flowers, roof flowers are used to decorate doors and windows, room paper cuts.

The art of paper-cutting, although from the folk, but to the Qing Dynasty has become a universal art, even then the royal relatives are inseparable from the paper-cutting. Kunning Palace in the Forbidden City, Beijing, is the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty when the marriage of the flower candle cave. According to the customs of the Manchu people, the window paper of the front and rear windows of the palace are framed outside. Walls framed with paper, the corners of the black "Xi" word paper cut flowers, the center of the roof is a black dragon and phoenix flower group paper cut. The walls of the aisles on both sides of the palace are also covered with paper cuttings. From the pattern, material and color of the paper-cutting, compared with the ceiling flower and wall flower of an ordinary farmhouse, there is basically no difference except that the pattern of the paper-cutting is slightly larger. At the beginning of the 20th century, during the "May Fourth" New Culture Movement, under the advocacy of advanced intellectuals such as Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Liu Bannong and Zhou Zuoren, the embryonic form of Chinese folklore was established. They collected a wide range of folklore materials as well as folk art works, including folk paper-cutting, and in the 1930s, the artist Chen Zhinong began his research and creation of folk paper-cutting in Beijing. He used sketches and silhouettes to depict a large number of customs and folklore of old Beijing, street vendors, workshops and craftsmen, food stalls and tea picks, fairs and temples, and idle people in the marketplace.

In the 1940s, paper cuttings based on real-life themes began to appear, and in 1942 Mao Zedong's Speech at the Yan'an Literary and Artistic Symposium pointed out that "literature and art serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers" as the policy of literature and art. Since then, Yan'an Lu Yi artists Chen Shuliang, Zhang Ding, Li Qun, Gu Yuan, Xia Feng and others began to learn the local folk paper cutting with a deep mass base, collected, discovered, organized and studied the folk paper cutting, and created a large number of new paper cutting reflecting the people's production, life and fighting in the border areas. The works utilized traditional folk styles and depicted new contents of the anti-Japanese war and the construction of the border areas. It promotes the creation and development of mass paper-cutting, so that the traditional folk paper-cutting has undergone a revolutionary change. 1944, in the Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region also exhibited for the first time in the Northwest region of the new folk paper-cutting works for the development of paper-cutting after the founding of New China opened the prelude to the development of the art of paper-cutting. It can be said that Yan'an paper-cutting created a new era of Chinese paper-cutting.

After the founding of new China, under the guidance of "let a hundred flowers blossom, push forward the new" literary and artistic policy, artists created a large number of new paper-cutting to express the socialist new people and new things, opening up the way of paper-cutting, but also enriched the form and content of the decorative arts of Chinese folk. In the creation of new paper-cutting in addition to the expression of all walks of life, children, sports, acrobatics, song and dance, etc. have become the most common themes of paper-cutting.

The art of paper-cutting has not been interrupted in Chinese history since its birth. It has been enriched in various folk activities, and is one of the art forms with the richest historical and cultural connotations in Chinese folklore.