Paper-cutting · Chinese Craft Stories

01 · Historical Records

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 · Core Techniques & Process

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.

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 · Regional Records & Related Items

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.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Fuyang lies in the middle reaches of the Huaihe River in the northwest of Anhui Province. Historically, most rural women in Fuyang possessed the skill of paper cutting, and it was passed down without interruption from generation to generation. On the whole, Fuyang paper cutting presents a rugged, plain, and mellow character; it has both the delicacy and grace of southern paper cutting and the artless robustness of northern paper cutting, achieving a harmonious unity of skill and artlessness, stillness and motion, emptiness and substance, and possesses very high artistic value. At present, the aging of Fuyang paper-cutting artists is a serious problem, the situation of transmission is very grave, and rescue and protection are urgently needed. Cheng Xinghong (associated inheritor, official archival record): Male, of the Han nationality, born in August 1971, from Fuyang, Anhui Province. He usually chooses high-quality red paper and colored xuan paper, and sometimes uses silk and other papers; without a preliminary sketch, with only a pair of scissors and a few needles, he can cut lively and exquisite patterns in folded paper. He usually employs techniques such as hollow cutting, chopping cut, and scooping cut. His representative works include The Mouse's Wedding and The Twelve Zodiac Animals "Fu". Many of his works are held in the collections of art museums. He is a representative inheritor of the paper cutting (Fuyang paper cutting) project of national-level intangible cultural heritage, fourth batch. He is committed to training successors and teaches the art of paper cutting in local primary and secondary schools.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗