Editor's Note
Nanning paper cut
Category: Traditional Skills
Level: Representative project of intangible cultural heritage of Nanning City
Batch: Eighth batch
Region:Guangxi · Nanning
Nanning paper-cutting is made of paper as the medium, made of scissors folded and cut, although the tools and materials are simple and easy to obtain, but it is a great test of the paper-cutting artist's cutting skills. In 2019, Nanning paper-cutting was included in the eighth batch of Nanning Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Project List.
Paper-cutting is an ancient artistic technique that has been carried forward with the invention of paper. As a result of the wisdom of ancient and modern innovation, paper-cutting has been born under the promotion and development of science and technology, and many artistic products have been derived.
In this issue, we will explore Nanning's paper-cutting skills and feel its unique artistic presentation.
Paper-cutting, folk also known as paper engraving. Every New Year's Festival, weddings and funerals, every household is indispensable to the custom of cutting paper and pasting window flowers.
Long before the invention of papermaking, paper-cutting had begun to take shape. Under the barren natural conditions, the ancients used thin sheet materials to cut patterns on leaves, leather, silk and gold leaf with the techniques of carving, skeletonizing, culling, carving and cutting, laying a certain foundation for the development of paper-cutting in later generations.
Nanning paper cut. Photo by Gan Yanxia
According to the data, the earliest paper-cutting on the mainland so far is the tsushima and monkey group flowers made during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. These two ancient paper-cutting works use the same technique as today's paper-cutting techniques, and are completed by folding and cutting.
Today, a thousand years later, Nanning paper-cutting still uses this ancient paper-cutting technique.
Nanning paper-cutting does not have strict requirements for paper-cutting materials, required tools, and workplaces. Photo by Gan Yanxia
As the capital of Zhuangxiang, Nanning has a thousand-year history of city building. With the development and growth of the city, Nanning paper-cutting has also flourished in the rich life of Zhuangxiang and the spread of diversified cultures.
Walking into the studio of Zhong Yunrui, the representative inheritor of Nanning's paper-cutting skills, Nanning Zhuangcai paper-cutting, there are many fiery and festive and interesting paper-cutting works hanging in a staggered manner: there are "cute" tigers with a cute attitude to send blessings, smiling and dancing Zhuang brothers and sisters, and a magnificent scenery of Guangxi landscapes... The red paper and white walls are very eye-catching.
Zhong Yunrui's paper-cut works. Photo by Gan Yanxia
Zhong Yunrui introduced that paper-cutting mainly has seven major steps, such as intention, composition, paper cutting, drawing, shape cutting, hollowing, and trimming.
However, Nanning paper-cutting does not completely rely on pen strokes, only based on daily life, exerting memory and imagination, through simple folding paper, using scissors to roughly point out the positioning, and then holding the paper in one hand, the other hand to carry the scissors, directly folding the shape out.
Fold the paper in half before cutting. Filmed by Hu Zhaoshuang
When cutting paper, you need to outline it in advance in your mind. Photo by Gan Yanxia
Paper cutting is a hollow art. The scissors turn around on the paper, removing the excess, and the right blank space makes the childish and vivid image jump on the paper.
Such a basic and practical cutting method is ingenious and endlessly varied, which greatly increases the creativity of Nanning paper-cutting, makes the paper-cutting shape lively and changeable, and makes each work unique.
To celebrate the 2022 Chinese New Year, Zhong Yunrui created the Tiger Rune Scroll. Photo by Gan Yanxia
Nanning paper-cutting is composed of three basic patterns: round and closed sun pattern, curved and open moon pattern, sharp and irregular fluctuation of the serrated pattern, also known as fire pattern.
It is not difficult to see from the pattern style that Nanning paper-cutting is rooted in human admiration for nature, thus reflecting the progress of Zhuangxiang national civilization.
Nanning paper-cut basic pattern. Courtesy of Zhong Yunrui
The success or failure of a Nanning paper-cutting painting not only has aesthetic requirements in the overall composition, but also pays attention to the details, which extremely tests the technical skills of the paper-cutting artists.
Nanning paper-cutting requires smooth paper-cutting lines, the position of the knife edge of the knife should be just right, and the scissors do not pause as much as possible during the operation process, and the turning is even and smooth, so that people can look at it without marks.
The details need to be handled more carefully. Photo by Gan Yanxia
In the process of nanning paper-cutting, the most tested skill is the treatment of serrated grain. The serrated pattern is more complex and requires a knife to be cut continuously, and it is very easy to have uneven grain, unstricted spacing, and interruption of knife transportation when cutting.
Zigzag display. Photo by Gan Yanxia
Therefore, a qualified Nanning paper-cutting artist needs to go through years of study and experience in order to grasp the strength of the knife steadily, the cutting action is crisp and clean, and at the same time quickly outline the image contour in the brain and other series of actions.
When cutting, the knife is powerful and the action is crisp. Filmed by Hu Zhaoshuang
"Paper cutting enriched my childhood." At a young age, Zhong Yunrui learned basic paper-cutting skills with her grandmother Huang Jiezhen and her aunt Zhong Huifang. By chance, after graduating from college, Zhong Yunrui went to Foshan City, Guangdong Province, to learn systematically from Chen Yongcai, the representative inheritor of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects in Guangdong.
After returning to Nanning in 2007 to settle down, Zhong Yunrui excavated the traditional culture and folk life of the Zhuang people in Nanning on the basis of traditional skills and the needs of social development, and created a batch of grounded and popular Zhuangxiang paper-cutting.
Nanning paper-cutting is a portrayal of the lives of the sons and daughters of Zhuangxiang. Gan Yanxia photographed Hu Zhao
The original pattern images of Nanning paper-cutting are mostly red villains of different sizes, or paper flowers with various forms.
So far, Nanning paper-cutting still retains this folk characteristic to a great extent. For example, the frog pattern that indicates many children and many blessings, the swallow commonly used in Zhuangjin, peony, lotus, auspicious cloud and other patterns will appear in paper-cut works.
Nanning paper-cutting incorporates a large number of strong brocade patterns, with a strong local regional color. Photo by Gan Yanxia
In addition to showing the scenery of Zhuangxiang life and telling the folk stories of Zhuangxiang, Zhong Yunrui's nanning paper-cutting under his fingers also cuts out The landmark buildings of Nanning City, various major events such as the Winter Olympics, etc. with the times, and even continuously explores new forms of paper-cutting in the three-dimensional field, showing Nanning's paper-cutting style in a more innovative and changeable way.
A corner of the paper-cut works of the Winter Olympics. Photo by Gan Yanxia
The work "Nanning Bridge". As the permanent host of the China-ASEAN Expo, Nanning's ties with ASEAN countries are the bridge of friendship. Zhong Yunrui uses Nanning paper-cuts to show the scenery of each bridge in Nanning, implying a bridge of friendship between people and cities and countries. Photo by Gan Yanxia
The work "Silk Road Through Ancient and Modern". The Silk Road connects ancient and modern times, and civilization unites the world. After participating in the activity of re-walking the path of Master Xuanzang, Zhong Yunrui recorded the feelings and shocks in his heart in a cut-out paper. Photo by Gan Yanxia
Nanning paper-cutting is created by working people, and it is also fed back to the working people to enjoy aesthetics. In the lives of thousands of households, Nanning paper-cutting satisfies people's spiritual enjoyment.
People post auspicious words such as "囍" and "Fu" in the couple's wedding room. Photo by Gan Yanxia
During the Spring Festival and wedding weddings, people will cut out auspicious words such as "囍", "Fu", "Spring" and "Wang" or animal paper cuts with beautiful symbolic meanings, posted on doors and windows, red and red, expressing the meaning of auspiciousness and blessings.
The paper-cut style enriches the image. Filmed by Hu Zhaoshuang
Nowadays, Nanning paper-cutting, which has gone out of Guangxi and gone international, has also become a wonderful cultural symbol, facing foreign friends, displaying and spreading the brilliant cultural life of the Nanning Zhuangxiang ethnic group in a fold and a bell.
Zhong Yunrui used the national paper-cutting method to create and design the World Cultural Heritage Huashan Rock Painting Legend Series Picture Book Story "Lantern Mountain". Photo by Gan Yanxia
Since 2015, Zhong Yunrui has begun to promote the "going out" of Zhuangcai paper-cutting creation studio, bringing Nanning paper-cutting to Guangxi University for the Aged, Nanning Vocational and Technical College, Nanning Special Education School, Nanning Jiefang Road Primary School and other schools, carrying out a series of paper-cutting professor activities to expand the inheritance and education of Nanning paper-cutting.
Zhong Yunrui went to Nanning Jiefang Road Primary School to guide students to learn Nanning paper-cutting skills. Courtesy of Zhong Yunrui
During the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, Zhong Yunrui used paper-cutting art to convey the spirit of national culture, organized and held two national paper-cutting network public welfare courses, and received many netizens to learn and watch.
Zhong Yunrui taught paper-cutting skills to friends from Southeast Asian countries. Courtesy of Zhong Yunrui
Based on the local culture, the beauty of the hometown is cut in color. Zhong Yunrui has taken the inheritance and development of Nanning paper-cutting as his own responsibility for many years, and has achieved good results in practical exploration, continuing to inherit the ancient and simple folk art of paper-cutting.
— Ends —
About falling in love with intangible cultural heritage
The "Love intangible cultural heritage" series is an important part of the "Guangxi Non-Genetic Inheritance Plan" launched by Guangxi Daily-Guangxi Yun. We hope to use our own brushstrokes and perspectives to sincerely present those intangible cultural heritages rooted in the magnificent land of Guangxi, and those cultural imprints that are deeply integrated into the blood of the sons and daughters of Zhuangxiang. As a result, a trickle of nurturing national pride and cultural self-confidence is gathered, so that everyone can become a practitioner, inheritor and beneficiary of intangible cultural heritage.
Planning coordinator 丨 Zeng Junfeng Rosa
This issue is written by Gan Yanxia
This issue is edited by Wang Wenying
Visual design 丨 Feng Shanwei
Video production 丨Hu Zhaoshuang
Total Duty 丨 Yuying Sun Lu
Produced by Guangxi Cloud Intangible Cultural Heritage Communication Team