The history of Chinese folk paper-cutting
The material used in paper-cutting in the modern sense is paper. Paper is one of the four great Ming dynasties of our country. But as the predecessor of paper-cut art, before paper was invented, people were already using gold foil and silver foil to make styles similar to modern paper-cut works for decoration of folk life and environment. At present, the earliest physical objects documented in archaeological data are the "Golden Four Birds Ornament Around the Sun" and the "Golden Frog-shaped Ornament" unearthed from the Jinsha Site in Chengdu, Sichuan. "Four Birds Surrounding the Sun": The whole vessel is round in shape, with an extremely thin body. The hollow pattern is divided into two layers, the inner layer is a circle, and 12 rotating tooth-like rays of light are equidistantly distributed around it (in modern paper-cut works, Professor Feng Gao summarized this pattern as zigzag pattern); the outer pattern surrounds the inner pattern and consists of 4 identical birds.
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The bird has a small body, short wings, slightly hooked wings, a short drooping tail, and three-toed claws. The birds head and feet are connected front to back and fly counterclockwise in the same direction, opposite to the rotation direction of the inner layer. The outer diameter is 12.5 cm, the inner diameter is 5.29 cm, and the thickness is 0.02 cm. This is a work with typical characteristics of paper-cutting. However, dating back more than 3,000 years, it is very rare to create such a perfect work in terms of decoration, pattern and design structure.
"Golden frog-shaped ornaments": A total of 7 "gold frog-shaped ornaments" were found in the site, of which 2 are complete and 5 are broken. The shape, size and production process are basically the same. The gold vessel is in the shape of a sheet, with a pointed peach-shaped head, a pair of round eyes, a five-figure body, a ridge in the middle of the back, front and rear limbs relatively inwardly curved, and a pointed tail. There are symmetrical chord patterns on both sides of the spine, extending from the back to the limbs. The interior of the chord pattern is a row of beaded patterns, 6.% long, 6 cm wide, and 0.04 cm thick. Frog-shaped paper-cut is the most common creative theme among folk paper-cuts in my country, and it does not distinguish between regions and nationalities. Some are more concrete and some are more abstract. Moreover, these frog patterns are often designed in combination with other auspicious patterns. Because in Chinese, frog and baby (a common name for Chinese people to themselves or their favorite children) have the same pronunciation, and everyone has the same pronunciation.They hope that the next generation can grow up healthy and happy, so many skilled mothers express their blessings to their children in the form of "frog" cuttings. However, whether the "golden frog-shaped ornaments" in the ruins also have this meaning requires further research on the customs and habits of the ancient Shu Kingdom before we can draw an accurate conclusion.
The existing physical data on ancient paper-cut patterns are the earliest and most reliable ones excavated by archaeologists in the Astana Beiyuan Tomb in Turpan, Xinjiang in 1955. Some of these paper cuts are cut into diamond shapes, some are folded and cut into waist and drum shapes, and some are cut into circular patterns. Most of these paper-cuts are folded first and then made. Among them, two paper-cuts are the most distinctive. One is a very vivid horse pattern with its head raised, wings and tail cut out. The other piece is a monkey pattern with lively and cute monkeys cut out. According to the "Excavation Briefing" of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum: "Scattered in Tomb 306 are some small pieces of paper cut into diamond or girdle shapes. Among them, there are fourteen pieces with text, only four of which can be put together. The word is three lines... On the eleventh day of the first month of the Xinyou year of Zhang He, will..." Zhang He is the reign name of Ju Jian of Gaochang, which was the seventh year of Datong, the seventh year of Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, that is, 541 AD. It can be seen from this that these paper-cuts were buried as objects, and during the Northern and Southern Dynasties in the sixth century, the production techniques were quite sophisticated and mature.
