Papercuts: a World Created with Scissors
2 min readThe papercut is a special folk art in China with a history of nearly 1, 000 years. The materials used are simple: ordinary paper and a pair of scissors (or a cutting knife).Askilled paper-cutting craftsperson cuts paperinto designs like doing magic tricks.
A piece of red paper is folded and then cut several times. before being unfolded into an attractive picture. Some craftspeople do not even set their eyes on what they are doing; they can even place a piece of paper inside a baggysleeve and cut it into a beautiful pattern Papercutting is a ty pe of improvised art with powerful expression: a papercut artist does not need a model picture to copy from, but relies on a pair of scissors to produce a work of art each time with slight differences. Papercuts are very popular in rural areas In the city of Xian, Shaanxi Province, people once used paper instead of glass as window covering. As white paper was monotonous and considered inauspicious, clever and deft young women started to cut pieces of red paper into joyous baby images or beautiful butterflies which they put on the windows to add liveliness to ordinary windows.
In ancient China, people enjoyed the tradition of making and hanging lanterns for festivals and joyous occasions. The shapes of lanterns varied, from red lanterns hung in midair, running-horse lanterns, lotus lanterns on the surface of water, and lion lanterns loved by children.
People sometimes drew pictures on the lanterns but more often would prefer to paste papercuts of different patterns which, set off by the lantern light, became even more vivid and interesting.
