Cheng Xinghong

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Second-generation bearer of the Cheng family paper-cutting tradition of Fuyang. Born into poverty, he accompanied his father Cheng Jianli as the family travelled from place to place to make a living, learning paper-cutting along the way, and by the age of nineteen he was creating works of his own. He inherited his father's technical style: his subjects are varied and his forms changeable, bold and exaggerated, archaic and powerful, with a delicacy that shows through the roughness. Within the regional tradition and school record of Paper-cutting in Fuyang, Anhui: Fuyang paper cutting is practiced in towns and villages along the Huaihe River; paper-cutting artists are active in the counties and cities of Yingshang, Funan, Jieshou, and Taihe. Apart from their own use, the works circulate through New Year picture stalls, temple fairs, and markets. Fuyang, known in ancient times as Yingzhou, lies on the Huaihe plain in the northwest of Anhui, with flourishing agriculture and a great many folk activities. Local paper cutting long depended on customs and rituals such as New Year festivals, weddings, birthdays, and sacrifices; rural women regarded flower cutting and embroidery as daily essential crafts, and the designs circulated through the exchange and borrowing of sample patterns among mothers and daughters, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, and neighbors.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in August 1971 in Fuyang, Anhui Province. He generally uses good-quality red paper and coloured xuan paper, and also works with silk damask and other papers. He draws no preliminary pattern: with only a pair of scissors and a few needles he cuts lively, finely wrought designs from folded paper. His usual techniques include hollowing cuts, chopped cuts and gouged cuts. His representative works include The Mouse Takes a Bride and The Twelve Zodiac Animals Forming the Character Fu. A number of his works are held in art museums. Within the documented technical tradition of Paper-cutting in Fuyang, Anhui: The tools for making Fuyang paper cutting are simple: a pair of scissors or a carving knife, plus colored papers of various kinds, is enough. Because of differences in people's life preferences and artistic tastes, Fuyang paper cutting has developed a variety of artistic styles, producing remarkable scenes and a wealth of splendor. Its making commonly employs single-color, multicolor, and collage forms, and makes extensive use of cutting, carving, and tearing techniques. Fuyang paper cutting is a folk art by which the working people of northwest Anhui entertain themselves; for thousands of years it has been closely bound up with local festival rituals, costume patterns, door and window decoration, carving, and embroidery. It gives expression to the emotional responses of the broad mass of working people — their joys, angers, loves, and hates — and embodies their fine ideals and wishes. The tools for Fuyang paper cutting are simple: a pair of scissors or a carving knife with a few sheets of colored paper is enough to make a piece. Its techniques include single-color, multicolor, and collage forms, with extensive use of cutting, carving, and tearing. The artists mostly work without a draft, folding the paper and beginning to cut, producing the patterns directly from memory and imagination. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Monochrome, colour, collage and cutting, carving, tearing": Fuyang cutting uses monochrome, colour and collage forms together with scissors, knives and tearing for strikingly varied results. "Hollowing, chopping and scooping cuts": Working good red paper, coloured xuan, silk and other stock without a design, cutters use hollowing, chopping and scooping strokes with scissors and needles. "Festivals, dress patterns, carving and embroidery": For centuries Fuyang cutting has been tied to festivals, dress patterns, window decoration, carving and embroidery in northwest Anhui. "Cheng Xinghong and Mouse Wedding": Born in 1971, Cheng Xinghong is known for Mouse Wedding and the Twelve Zodiac 'Fortune', with works in museum collections, and teaches in local schools.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of paper-cutting (Fuyang paper-cutting), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is committed to training successors and teaches the art of paper-cutting in local primary and secondary schools.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Cheng Xinghong · National Representative Bearer Archive