Paper-cut is one of China's most popular and characteristic folk arts. It takes paper as the material and scissor or engraving knife as the tool. The tradition can be traced back to the 6th century. However, it probably emerged even a few centuries earlier. Paper-cuts are mainly used as decorations and patterns, and for religious and decoration purposes.

According to usage, paper-cutting works can be categorized into three types. First, paper-cutting works ornament gate, window, wall, columns, mirrors, lamps and lanterns in homes. It is still widely used today. At some important festivals, for example at the New Year's Festival, it is very significant to put some paper-cuts on entrance gates. They are supposed to bring good luck for the family. Paper works are also used for decoration on presents or are given as presents. Second, they were used for religious purpose, serving as decorations for sacrificial offerings to the ancestors and gods. Third, some paper-cuts are made into embroidery base patterns used in decorating clothes and lacquer work.

The paper-cut art has been widely spread and of a long history. It has exerted an influence on decorative patterns, leather silhouette, printed cloth, embroidery and paintings. Folk paper cutting outlines the natural forms by way of employing characters, symbol and implication to constitute beautiful patterns. Various paper objects and symbolic figures used to be buried with the deceased or were burned. It is still the case in some part of China.

Paper-cuts are produced by hand, not by machine. There are two methods of manufacture: scissor cuttings and knife cuttings. The former one is fashioned with scissors. Several pieces of paper, up to eight pieces, are fastened together. Then, artists cut the motif with sharp, pointed scissors.

In knife cutting, artists put several layers of paper on a relatively soft foundation consisting of a mixture of tallow and ashes. Following a pattern, the artists hold a sharp knife vertically and cut the motif into the paper. Considerably more paper-cuttings can be made in one operation with knife cuttings than with scissor cuttings.

As a form of folk art, it occupies a significant position in the folk activities. As early as the Southern Song dynasty, professional paper-cutting craftsmen have emerged. Today, in the countryside, usually only women and girls make paper-cuts. It used to be even one of the craftsmanship that every girl was to master and that were often used to judge brides.

Forms of Folk Paper-Cut:




• Window Paper-Cutting

Window paper-cutting means the type of paper-cutting works pasted on windows as an ornament. In the north of China, farmers' houses are mostly windowed with wooden squares. It is commonly seen that a layer of white leather paper is pasted on the vertical squares, rectangular squares or geometrically patterned squares. In case of some important holidays, such as Spring Festival, instead of the old leather paper, new paper-cutting work is pasted as a symbol of bidding farewell to the outgoing year and ushering the New Year in. The fauna and flora, figurines as well as a series of theatrical tales can all become the themes of the window paper-cuts.

• Gate Label

It is a type of paper-cutting works that hang on the gate sills. It is also called "hanging label", "hanging money". It is in the form of flag with big head, double size and lower part as tassel. It is engraved on red paper or multi-colored paper, with geometrical patterns. Embedded with figures, flowers, phoenix, dragons and the other propitious characters, the gate label must be hung in series when hung up.

• Festive Paper-Cutting

It is used to decorate the household appliances and indoor furniture, such as teapot, soapbox, basin, and dressing mirror. It takes the form of circle, rectangle, peach, pomegranate and other propitious patterns. The auspicious themes and red color imply happiness.

• Gift Paper-Cutting

Gift paper-cut is attached to cake, birthday noodle and egg. In Shandong Province, people attach it onto the "happy egg" to celebrate a baby's birth. Tortoise-patterned paper cuts symbolic of longevity are commonly seen in the countryside of Fujian Province.

• Shoe Paper-Cutting

Served as the base pattern for shoe embroidery, it is cut into a bundle of flowers or a shape of crescent moon, which are embroidered on the head of shoe or matched to the size of the shoe vamp and along the two ends. With themes of flora fauna and birds, shoe paper-cut makes possible doubled needling and color changing, two embroidery techniques.

• Douxiang Paper-Cutting

It is mainly used as decoration on the occasion of sacrificing rituals. It is engraved on the wax polished paper of double color. Its themes usually include spirits and other legendary characters.

• Paper-Cutting Flower Bundle

This kind of paper cutting has a layout pattern. It takes a form of a circle-shaped flower with four even sizes. The paper can be folded up and cut into a flower bundle in four even sides. This pattern has its great merit in decoration.

Mianhua:

Mianhua is art created with flour. Fermented flour is kneaded into various shapes such as animals, gourds, fruits and flowers, and then steamed and finally coloured.

In Mizhi County of Shaanxi Province, I was fascinated as an old woman kneaded the flour. She cut a small piece of dough and rubbed it several times. First she made a body of a bird. Then she rubbed a small piece of dough into short noodles, pressed them flat, pasted them on the back of the bird and made the wing of the bird with a comb. Finally she made the beak. She had kneaded a singing skylark.

It was even more interesting to see her knead a monkey. She kneaded the flour into a monkey with a hat very quickly. Finally, she put two black pieces of millet on the head of the monkey for the eyes. I calculated the time she took to make the dough sculptures: four minutes for the skylark and six minutes for the monkey.

When asked the origin of mianhua, she did not know. She said that it was handed down from generation to generation. Research says mianhua was related to the customs of funeral and sacrificial rites. Three thousand years ago in the Shang Dynasty, slaves were buried alive with their dead masters. Wooden and pottery figurines were buried with the dead masters instead. Nowadays, when paying respects during the festival for the dead, the Qingming Festival, people in northern Shaanxi Province still keep the ancient customs of watering the graveyard and offering mianhua as sacrifices to ancestors.

Today mianhua is used as a gift. In the home of a person who just got married, we saw mianhua which were sent by his relatives as a congratulatory gift, each weighing two kilogrammes. The mianhua with a picture of dragons and phoenixes was called long feng cheng xiang (dragons and phoenixes show prosperity.). The mianhua in the shape of a chain of locks expresses the hope that the newly married couple will live to an old age happily. Eighteen pairs of mianhua sent by eighteen relatives were arranged together just like an art display of mianhua.

According to a local custom, when returning to her parents' home, a married woman must bring half a basket of mianhua with her. The ring-shaped mianhua presented to her parents and other elders expresses the wish that the elders should have a long life as the ring goes round without the end. The mianhua are decorated with a bat and a sika deer as a symbol for the hope that the couple can spend their remaining years in happiness because the word for bat and happiness are homophonic in China. The word for sika deer and payment is also homophonic.

Mianhua shaped like a rabbit and tiger are given to children, to show the wish that a boy should be as strong as tiger and a girl as lovely and clever as a white rabbit. Mianhua in the shape of birds is used to show that children will be good at singing and dancing like birds.