Ethnic minority paper-cutting with local characteristics
The themes and styles of Yunnan paper-cutting basically include elephants, cattle and sheep, pagodas, clothes, utensils, figures, flowers and birds, and auspicious patterns with local characteristics of Yunnan. Yunnan paper-cutting has two functions. First, the paper-cuts or carvings on the sacred trees, sacred trees and flags in temples are mostly contributions made by believers to worship gods and Buddhas. The shape is simple and simple, with a primitive and childish meaning. Although the sacred curtains are similar to the paper-cut curtains of northern folk, they are very large. They are often made of multiple pieces of paper pasted together and folded to create repeated patterns, giving them a mysterious religious atmosphere. The Manchu folk paper-cutting in the Tonghua area of ??Jilin Province can be judged to have the primitive color of the regional ethnic group just from the appearance of the paper-cutting.
In terms of subject matter, not only the bears, tigers, deers, mountain flowers, ginseng, woodcutter, and shepherds in the paper-cut scenes are inseparable from the life in the forest and snowy fields, but also the "grandma" wearing flags and riding boots are also inseparable. It is an ancient custom used by the Manchu people to worship their ancestors. "Liao Grandma" is the same as the paper-cut "Zhujiu Doll" in the Yellow River Basin. It has a symmetrical frontal shape and spreads its limbs to reveal the perfection of the human body. It replaces the human body to complete the mission of defending life and entertaining the gods. Slightly different from the "Granny Doll", the "Grandma Man" is a collection of three-dimensional paper-cut patterns that can stand and be placed. Skillful folk hands use the language characteristics of paper that combine folding and cutting to give the sheet material a shape that is both volumetric and scissor-like. On the other hand, the subject matter is the life of the Manchu people and the legendary story of the proud King Han who started his business and became the world. In terms of technique, the characteristic of Jilin Manchu paper-cutting is to make full use of the convenience of materials, techniques and language. One of its manifestations is that the multi-folding method replaces the hollowing out of the interior decoration of the image, achieving twice the result with half the effort, such as burning holes with incense. Furthermore, the Manchu folk paper-cutting in Tonghua area is not like the small knives used for cutting flowers in the mainland. They use ordinary large scissors instead of hooking and turning to cut curves. Instead, they mostly use a straight knife and a hard turning method, showing that A kind of strength of gold and stone.
