What is the history of traditional paper-cut art in China?

The development history of paper-cutting;

1, pre-Tang period:

The invention of paper was in the Western Han Dynasty BC. Before this, there could be no paper-cutting art, but at that time people used thin materials to make handicrafts by hollowing out and carving.

But it was popular long before paper appeared, that is, carving, carving, cutting and cutting patterns on gold foil, leather, silk and even leaves.

It is recorded in Historical Records Jiantong Di Feng that in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, a plane tree leaf was cut into a piece of jade and given to his younger brother, so he was named Tang Hou. During the Warring States period, leather carving and silver foil hollowed-out engraving were removed together with paper-cutting, and their appearance laid a certain foundation for the formation of folk paper-cutting.

2. During the Tang Dynasty:

Paper-cutting has been in a period of great development in the Tang Dynasty. In Du Fu's poem Peng ADB, there is such a sentence: hot soup is enough for my feet, and paper is enough for my soul. At that time, the custom of paper-cutting evocation had spread among the people.

The paper-cut in the Tang Dynasty, which is now in the British Museum, shows that the paper-cut at that time had a high level of manual art and a complete picture composition, expressing an ideal realm between heaven and earth.

Popular in the Tang Dynasty, the carved patterns of flowers and trees have the characteristics of paper-cutting. For example, the positive pattern in Masakura, Japan, is a typical paper-cut art form.

3. During the Song Dynasty:

During the Southern Song Dynasty, professional artists took paper-cutting as their profession. According to Song people's careful "Old Wulin Stories", there were hundreds of small economies in Hangzhou at this time. Among them, some specialize in cutting cymbals, some are good at cutting all kinds of calligraphy characters, and some specialize in cutting all kinds of colors.

4. Ming and Qing Dynasties:

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the paper-cut handicraft art matured and reached its peak. Folk paper-cut handicraft art has a wider range of applications, such as floral decorations on folk lanterns, decorative patterns on fans, embroidery patterns and so on.

Paper-cutting is used as decoration and reprocessing, but more people in China use paper-cutting as decoration to decorate their homes and beautify their home environment, such as doorjambs, window grilles, cabinet flowers, wedding flowers and ceiling flowers, which are all used to decorate doors, windows and rooms.

5. In modern times:

In the 1940s, paper-cutting with real life as its theme began to appear. 1942, Mao Zedong pointed out in his speech at the Yan' an forum on literature and art that literature and art should serve the workers, peasants and soldiers.

Since then, artists from Lu Yi, Yan 'an, such as Chen Shuliang, Zhang Ding, Li Qun, Gu Yuan, Xia Feng, etc., began to learn local folk paper-cutting with a deep mass base, and collected, excavated, sorted out and studied it.

A large number of new paper-cuts reflecting the production, life and struggle of frontier people have been created. The works adopt the traditional folk style and describe the new contents of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the border area construction.

It promoted the emergence and development of mass paper-cutting and innovated the traditional folk paper-cutting. 1944, the northwest folk new paper-cut works were first exhibited in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region. It opened the prelude to the development of paper-cutting art after the founding of New China. It can be said that Yan 'an paper-cutting has created a new era of Chinese paper-cutting.

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