Introduction to paper-cutting in Cixian County, Hebei Province
Paper-cutting, also known as window grilles, flower-cutting, and ribbon-cutting in Cixian County, is the most popular traditional decorative art among the people. It uses scissors and carving knives as tools to cut paper into various shapes, using yin and yang, The technique of alternating between virtual and real is used to depict internal lines and patterns, and the patterns are reflected through the contrast between virtual and real, yin and yang. These patterns are various flowers, birds, animals, characters and auspicious patterns. They are used as a kind of folk solar term and custom activities. Decoration creates various environmental atmospheres.
Folk paper-cutting in Ci County can be found in every village in urban and rural areas. Almost every woman in the village can cut paper. There are masters in every village, and it has been passed down for thousands of years. It took shape as early as the Cishan Culture period more than 7,000 years ago. Cixian paper-cutting can be said to be a microcosm of the Cishan Culture that has been passed down from generation to generation to this day. Initially it did not appear as a decoration, but as a carrier of ancient totems and witchcraft. The symbols contained in various paper-cut patterns are roughly auspicious symbols and reproductive symbols, which externalize peoples wishes or cure diseases for children. To ward off evil spirits or pray for a good harvest in the coming year, the symbols and languages ????are different in different regions.
Cixian paper-cutting is a product of folk culture. Its form of expression, theme connotation, and artistic style all contain ethics and aesthetic taste. Because of its concise and flexible expression techniques and the modeling rules that are more important than expression, it has become a symbol of folk art. It is so strange that it is known as a "living fossil".
