Paper-cutting · Chinese Craft Stories

01 · Historical Records

The history of Taiyuan paper cutting is bound up with folk customs of the Jinzhong region — seasonal festivals, weddings, moving into a new home, temple fairs and market trips, first-birthday and full-month celebrations, and the like. In former times, women in the city's outskirts and in places such as Jinyuan and Qingxu commonly used cut-paper flowers to decorate doors, windows, bridal chambers, and ceilings. Traditional designs were mostly window flowers, wedding flowers, lantern flowers, and offering flowers set before household shrines; subjects covered human figures, animals, and pavilions and towers. Most works are monochrome, though multi-color, dyed, and backing-color techniques are also used. In recent decades the subject matter of Taiyuan paper cutting has kept pace with the times, and large works have appeared such as “The Splendid Taiyuan,” “Biaoli Shanhe” (A Land Guarded by Mountains and Rivers), “Solemn Scene of the Pure Land of Bliss,” and the long scroll “The Twelve Beauties of Jinling.”

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Taiyuan paper cutting is a folk traditional art deeply loved by the people of Taiyuan. Using paper as its material and scissors as its tools, Taiyuan paper cutting expresses the artist's understanding of the world through the artistic form of openwork (hollow-cut) design. It is commonly used for folk occasions such as New Year and other festivals, weddings, moving into a new home, temple fairs and market trips, first-birthday and full-month celebrations, and daily life. With its deep cultural foundations, it is an encyclopedia of the humanistic history of Taiyuan. Taiyuan paper cutting is realistic without being literal, exaggerated without becoming absurd, and transformed without losing truthfulness; its lines are fluent and its images vivid and refined, offering a beauty that is reserved and natural, and concentrating the charm of Taiyuan's ancient culture and art. Its technical character is fairly complex, including process steps such as drafting the design, tracing the pattern, twisting the paper cords, pinning the sample in place, and cutting and carving. The finer a large work is intended to be, the more meticulous its draft must be; during pattern tracing, suitable adjustments are needed to prevent damage, so as to achieve a reasonable layout and aesthetic effect. Taiyuan paper cutting makes skillful use of the interplay of dots, lines, and planes, achieving a visual effect of softness containing strength and strength concealed within softness. Its subjects keep pace with the times and its content is wide-ranging, displaying both the ancient cultural character of Taiyuan and the real life of the present age. The works comprise more than a thousand patterns in decorative, religious-and-customary, and seasonal categories, with many kinds of motifs including human figures, animals, and pavilions and towers; commonly used techniques include folded cutting, hollow cutting, and knife carving. Most works are monochrome, though multi-color, dyed, and backing-color techniques are also employed. Representative works include “The Splendid Taiyuan,” “Biaoli Shanhe” (A Land Guarded by Mountains and Rivers), “Solemn Scene of the Pure Land of Bliss,” and the long scroll “The Twelve Beauties of Jinling.” Taiyuan paper cutting condenses the traditional concepts of Taiyuan's ancient culture and carries forward the humanistic spirit and intellectual pulse of its forebears; it is an epitome of traditional beliefs and ethics, and even more a window through which to observe and understand folk customs and culture.

Archival Records of Process Steps

Its technical character is fairly complex, including process steps such as drafting the design, tracing the pattern, twisting the paper cords, pinning the sample in place, and cutting and carving.

Drafting, adjusting, twisting and pinning

The working order: draft the design, adjust it against breakage, twist paper cords, pin the sheets and finally cut and carve; the finer the work, the more careful the draft.

The Guo and Wang families

Family transmission dominates, the Guo and Wang households being the representative lineages, now in their fifth generation.

Fold-cutting, hollow-cutting and knife carving

Cutting folded, hollowing and carving with a knife, the work interlaces dots, lines and planes to attain softness within firmness.

Splendid Taiyuan and the Twelve Beauties of Jinling

Representative works including Splendid Taiyuan, Mountains and Rivers Within, a Buddhist tableau and the long scroll Twelve Beauties of Jinling, among over a thousand designs.

The Shanxi Shanglinyuan paper-cutting institute

The project's safeguarding unit is the Shanxi Shanglinyuan Traditional Paper-cutting Art Institute, responsible for documenting, researching and transmitting the craft.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

It has a long, deep-rooted history, and is now distributed with the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, as its core area. It decorates environments and heightens festive atmospheres, and is much loved by the general public; at the same time it has become a new way for local people to raise their incomes and develop the economy, playing a positive role in promoting local economic development and building a harmonious and beautiful society.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Taiyuan paper cutting is transmitted chiefly through families; at present the principal representative inheritor lineages are the Guo family and the Wang family, which have now reached the fifth generation.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Paper-cutting (Taiyuan, Shanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗