Folk paper-cutting of various ethnic styles in Southwest China

Folk paper-cutting of various ethnic styles in Southwest China

Theme Features

1. The theme of primitive witchcraft worship is still preserved in Xiangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan minority settlements and Guangdong.

2. The mythical stories accompanying primitive worship are also common themes in folk paper-cutting.

3. In areas where the Han people live together, there are also a considerable number of invisible appeal themes and opera story themes.

4. The costumes and folk customs of the Han nationality and southern ethnic minorities have promoted the development of paper-cut decorative graphics.

Style

The paper-cut patterns in Hunan are the legacy of the Chu land cut-out carvings of the Warring States Period and the Pansheng decoration in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, which are completed by chiseling flowers; the paper-cut patterns in western Hunan are popular using the shadow painting technique of combining line blocks and strong contrast in thickness.

Paper-cutting is called "carving" in Hubei, and the creative groups are mainly rural women and folk artists who use it as a side job. Hubei paper-cuts are large in format, mostly with symmetrical and balanced compositions, vivid shapes, strong black and white contrast, and rich decorative interest.

Expression techniques

Guizhou paper-cutting has a rough Dong type and a beautiful Taijiang type. Guizhous hole-shaped paper-cutting technique is to determine the outer contour and then use a knife to cut out swirl-shaped or tooth-shaped lines that follow the trend inside the shape, while the Taijiang-type paper-cutting technique first cuts out the outline and then uses a needle to pierce the sample. details.

The most distinctive feature of Hunan paper-cutting is chiseling, which is characterized by first fixing the white paper on the wax board and then carefully carving it out with a small file. This method is mostly used for womens embroidery, so fine needles are used to poke many pinhole lines on the paper pattern to indicate the embroidery method, giving it a unique decorative flavor.

The production of paper-cut graphics in Hunan and Hubei is mostly based on engraving. Using an oblique chisel, overlapping ten or twenty layers of paper on the original shape, carve out slender, complex and neat shadow painting works.