Zhang Xiufang

01-0071Paper-cuttingTraditional Fine ArtsYangzhou, JiangsuBatch 1 (2007)

Lineage & School of Heritage

Zhang Xiufang was born into the Zhang family of paper-cutters in Yangzhou and is the sixth-generation bearer of the Zhang school of paper-cutting; she began to study Yangzhou paper-cutting at the age of thirteen.

Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire

Female, of Han ethnicity, born in 1943, a native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Her paper-cutting is marked by the artistic qualities of spirit, refinement, and elegance, and makes extensive use of openwork technique; because of the openwork, positive patterns require every line to remain connected, while negative patterns require every line to be severed, giving rise to a structure that survives a thousand cuts and remains unbroken through ten thousand snips. Zhang Xiufang's paper-cutting, while inheriting the traditional features of the older generation, incorporates her own innovations; its content is chiefly flowers, birds, fish, and insects, its lines winding and fluent, suggesting motion within stillness, its compositions exquisite and elegant, and its images boldly simplified, truly attaining the artistic standard that circles are as round as the autumn moon, squares as square as grey bricks, lines as fine as whiskers, notches as jagged as saw teeth, and points as sharp as wheat awns; her representative works include Qionghua (Viburnum Blossoms), Birds Sing and Flowers Give Forth Their Fragrance (Niaoyu Huaxiang), and the hanging screen Fifty Cranes among Clouds (Wushi Yunhe Guaping).

Honors & Recognition

A national representative bearer of paper-cutting (Yangzhou paper-cutting), a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

References & Archival Sources

Zhang Xiufang · National Representative Bearer Archive

Representative Items of This Bearer

Profile

Representative item: Paper-cutting
Item code: Ⅶ-16
Category: Traditional Fine Arts
Region: Yangzhou, Jiangsu
Born: 1943.12.27
Batch: Batch 1 (2007)

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