Exquisite and elegant "three-sided" paper-cutting
Sanbian, the abbreviation of Dingbian, Jingbian and Anbian, is north of Ansai and on the northwest border of northern Shaanxi. The stretching ancient Great Wall passes through the Sanbian, and to the north is the vast Ordos of Inner Mongolia. The prairie is connected to the Hetao Plain in the west via Yanchi. Compared with the Ansai paper-cut, the three sides are the real frontier fortresses. The ancient crenellations of the Great Wall and the ruins of beacon towers tell people how many tragic wars have occurred here. In order to block the nomads in the north from the Great Wall, the rulers of the past dynasties dispatched large numbers of soldiers from the Central Plains and the south to guard the borders. The "stable frontier" is the origin of the name of the three sides. Therefore, compared with Ansai, the three sides are the true place of multi-ethnic integration. "The remaining Great Wall, straight roads, beacon towers, garrison cities, inscriptions of the generals, tombs, stone portraits and Yangko dances are the cultural styles of the Central Plains brought by the border guards."
However, the paper-cutting style of the three sides located on the northwest border is not as rough and powerful as the Ansai paper-cutting in the south, but is as delicate and euphemistic as the southern paper-cutting.
Exquisite and detailed three-sided paper cutting
This is exactly the opposite of the traditional Chinese culture of "beautiful in the north and beautiful in the south". Among the existing information, there is a common saying that because many of the soldiers guarding the border came from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas in the south, there were many female family members accompanying them. It was those female family members who accompanied their husbands to guard the border. The slender and beautiful paper-cutting art characteristics of my hometown are integrated into the local folk paper-cutting. The reason is also due to the ancient immigrants: "In the ninth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, the people of Fen, Ping, Ze, and Lu in Shanxi were ordered to cultivate land in Hexi. He also established his family, and established the Suide Guard Command and Envoy Department. He moved the army to the south of the Yangtze River and established a military garrison called "Yansui Range Victory". "Apart from this, are there any other reasons? Historically, there have been very frequent exchanges between the Three Sides and the Hetao Plain in Ningxia. Due to the barren land and harsh climate, people from the Three Sides often traveled far away from Ningxia, from the rich Hetao Plain area. I'm afraid I won't just use it back.The money and food to support the family may also bring the culture back to their hometown. Furthermore, three sides are grassland. Before the 1980s, this place was full of deserts and Gobi salt-alkali land. The wind and sand were strong and lasted for a long time. The fellow villagers jokingly said that the wind only blows once a year here, from the first day of the new year to the new year. In the 1930s, due to the strong wind and sand, the villagers made the window panes very small, and the hemp paper could be pasted on them to last. Naturally, the window grilles for the New Year could only be cut thin and small, so that they could transmit light and fit on the small window panes.
Generally speaking, compared with Ansai, three-sided paper-cutting is different in the following aspects: first, in terms of form and style, it is more delicate and elegant, with the characteristics of southern paper-cutting; secondly, in terms of subject matter and content, it is based on animals and Flowers and plants are the main ones, and the "golden camel entering treasure" appears in the traditional pattern, which means the image of a camel as a desert animal, reflecting the geographical characteristics of being located on the edge of the desert on three sides; thirdly, the decorative pattern likes to use zigzag patterns, and its slender style mainly Reflected here, they also like to use city wall edge patterns, which is naturally related to the local ancient Great Wall relics. Finally, the four-part cutting method is a unique feature of three-sided paper cutting.
Author: Wang Jienu, teacher of Art Department, Baoji University of Arts and Sciences
