What is the moral of paper-cutting?

In the vast rural areas of China, for many years, all kinds of arts have been created and appreciated by ordinary people, and paper-cutting is one of them. Paper-cutting, as its name implies, is to cut paper into graphics with scissors. Most of the authors are rural women, who may have been cut into white-haired mothers-in-law since they were teenagers. Under their scissors, they created a series of paper-cut works that are either childish or exquisite but full of interest.

Paper-cutting includes window flowers, doormats, wall flowers, ceiling flowers, snuff, patterns, happy flowers, spring flowers, funeral flowers and so on. Paper-cutting is also a folk art, and its emergence and spread are closely related to rural festivals and customs. For example, window grilles, doormats and snuff are hung during the Spring Festival or Lantern Festival. In the northern rural areas, during the Chinese New Year, white paper and red and green traceries are newly pasted on the windows. The doors are pasted on the top of the door and in front of the window, and snuff is pasted on lanterns at night, so the atmosphere of the New Year is very strong. When you get married, use wedding flowers as the layout of the new house and stick them on the interior, furniture and utensils. Similarly, birthday flowers and funeral flowers are also posted on birthdays and funerals. When decorating a room, wall flowers and ceiling flowers are attached to the wall and roof respectively. In short, most of them are used to decorate the environment, enhance the festive atmosphere, and stick them on courtyards, bedrooms or electrical appliances.

The function of the mode is different from the above categories. It is used as a model and pattern for inheritance and replication. Patterns include clothes, shoes, hats, bellies, pillows, bed curtains, door curtains and other embroidery patterns. Every time you cut a figure, sew it roughly on another piece of paper, smoke it before you get the candle, bake it black, remove the paper-cut figure, and then leave a blank figure with black smoke as the bottom. The original paper-cut pattern can be used as garment embroidery. In this way, rural women handed down precious patterns from generation to generation.

The content of paper-cutting is very particular. Auspicious patterns symbolize auspiciousness and ward off evil spirits, such as dolls, gourds and lotus flowers. It symbolizes many children and many blessings. Birds, livestock, melons, fruits, fish and insects are familiar objects for farmers, and they are also the main content of their performances. As a folk art, paper-cutting has a strong regional style. Shaanxi window grilles are simple and bold in style, simple and concise, and the paper-cuts in Yuxian County, Hebei Province and Guangling, Shanxi Province are stained with color and gorgeous in the thick. Its opera characters are particularly distinctive. The paper-cutting in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province is simple and ingenious, the paper-cutting in Yixing is gorgeous and neat, and the paper-cutting in Nantong is beautiful and exquisite. Guangdong Foshan paper-cut is rich in color, changeable in technique and strong in decoration. Shandong Gaomi paper-cut is exquisite and meticulous.

According to some archaeological remains, paper-cutting appeared at the latest in the Northern Dynasty (386-58 1), with a history of 1500 years. Although it is simple to make and shape, it contains rich folk customs and life connotations, and it is the condensation and exaggeration of various forms of folk art, thus embodying the modeling law, creative concept and formal characteristics of folk art. Understanding and studying folk paper-cutting is a shortcut to appreciate and understand various folk arts.