By the time I got to Xunyi, I couldn't see Ku Shulan anymore. At that moment, she had already taken a pair of flower-cutting scissors, stepped on the rising smoke of the countryside, and went to the Yao Pond of the Heavenly Queen Mother to show her flower-cutting skills.
Yet I believe she is still alive. Living in her vivid and vivid cut-and-paste art works, living on the country roads she has stepped on, living in the hearts of everyone in Xunyi.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have come to see her from afar, and even brought a few rolls of yellow and green paper for her paper-cutting.
At this moment, I am standing in front of her statue at the Ku Shulan Memorial. In the photo, she holds a pair of scissors in her right hand, and her eyes are focused on the rabbit cut on the paper cut in her left hand, the rabbit has two large ears, and she grins happily at Ku Shulan, as if laughing about stealing carrots in the crop field. The surrounding earthen walls are covered with colorful clip-and-paste paintings, and Ku Shulan sits in such an artistic temple, and the auspicious light envelops her with a dazzling aura, one of which is the crown of UNESCO's "Master of Folk Arts and Crafts".
In the face of all this, I really can't believe that this Ku Shulan, who is still in time and space, is actually a rural old lady who can't read a few big characters, wraps her small feet, and circles around the pot all day.
I don't expect that to be the case. Just like the peasant women living at the lowest level of society, Ku Shulan wrapped her feet at the age of three or four, married at the age of seventeen, and then gave birth to children and farmed the land, and in the poor livelihood of pushing a year to go, she adhered to the "flower-cutting" craft learned from her mother, whether she knelt on the ground to cut wheat, Qinghuang did not take the bran to eat, or the foolish husband "beat her six times a day (times)", every day whenever she had time, she kept using scissors to cut the chickens, ducks, pigs, dogs, flowers and birds around her on the paper, in order to pin her yearning for life outside of loneliness. Of course, at this time, she was far from any artistic creation, but instinctively continued the simple and chic paper-cutting skills of that generation of women in hardship, helping the local weddings and funerals. And what really makes her a master of art is indeed a bit of a surreal mystery. This was purely an accident after she was sixty years old, and that day without any warning, she inexplicably fell under the earth cliff five meters deep in front of her house, unconscious! After more than forty consecutive days of coma, her family even prepared for her, but she magically opened her eyes from the earth kang and grabbed scissors and colored paper as soon as she got up. And while cutting and singing, singing in the days when she was unconscious, the heavenly flower-cutting lady not only often came to see her, but also taught her the tricks and secrets of cutting flowers in the sky, and now she is the "flower-cutting lady" in the world.
Of course this is somewhat magical. But this was sung tirelessly by Ku Shulan, and the crowd was also convinced of it, and they even believed that the "flowers" that Ku Shulan cut after that could also drive away evil and avoid evil, cure diseases and save people.
However, Ku Shulan, who escaped death, really became the "flower-cutting lady" in the human world. This "flower-cutting lady" has since become an eternal theme to be expressed in each of Ku Shulan's major works. This is a completely deified goddess figure, with a round face, a high nose, a phoenix crown, and a drapery. Some of them sat in the pavilions, some lived in the caves, and some came to the flowers, always so kind and festive. And Ku Shulan no longer repeats the traditional monochromatic paper-cutting form, and whimsically adopts methods such as set paste, collage, and stacking paste, so that the character image that appears under her scissors is colorful, beautiful and vivid, rich and full; the birds and animals are realistic and funny, vivid and vivid; the picture is also magical, informal, full of romantic atmosphere. In order to render the spiritual home she needed in her heart, she half-madly cut it as she wanted, and magically saw where it could be brilliant. And sing while cutting:
Who is the Flower Cutter?
The flower cutter is me.
There is no flower cut lady,
There is no such a big knowledge (scene)...
Really, without The "Flower Cut Lady" of Xun Yi, China's paper-cutting art would really "not have such a big knowledge (scene)". Ku Shulan was just an ordinary rural woman, who followed her like a shadow in her life, and even when UNESCO awarded her the title of "Master of Folk Arts and Crafts", she became famous in the art world at home and abroad as early as the 1980s, and when she was known as the "Picasso" of contemporary China, she still lived in an adobe house of less than nine square meters. The house is half earthen kang, half pot stove, and her paper-cutting workshop is the earthen kang. It is in this extremely simple living environment that her paper-cut with the smell of ravine soil has also entered the National Museum of Fine Arts, into the art halls of Hong Kong, Japan, the United States and other art halls that have attracted the attention of the world, creating an artistic height that many artists cannot reach in their lifetime.
This cannot but make people sigh!
Unfortunately, the poor Ku Shulan has gone, and she has been away from us for more than twenty years. Before his death, Wen Weiqun's "Flower Cut Lady - Ku Shulan" was published by Taiwan Hansheng Publishing House. After her death, the government also established the "Ku Shulan Memorial Hall" for her, and her masterpiece "Returning to her Mother's Home" stands on the county cultural square, like a landscape that will never fade, and many people stop in front of the sculpture every day. In their hearts, Ku Shulan is still alive, living in the hearts of everyone, living among the mountains and mountains.
Really, she's still alive.
September 2014
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > author profile</h1>
Wang Shenghua, real name Li Chonghua, pen name Mengzhi. Famous writer, critic, calligrapher, and cultural scholar. Graduated from northwestern university Chinese department.
He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, honorary chairman of the Chinese Calligraphers and Painters Association, vice chairman of the National Joint Conference of Sinology Institutions, member of the Art Committee of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the China Democratic League, executive vice chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Sinology Research Association, visiting professor of Chang'an University, professor of modern college of Northwest University, visiting professor of Xi'an Urban Construction Vocational College, consultant of Shaanxi Folk Writers Association, consultant of Confucius Society of Shaanxi Province, etc. He was the editor-in-chief of Western Art Newspaper and the director of the Joint Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature. He has published more than 20 works such as "Dream Home" and won 37 national awards.