Jintan Paper-cutting

Jintan Paper-cutting

Jintan Paper-cutting is a national intangible cultural heritage.

　　Paper-cutting is a traditional art form with distinctive local characteristics that has been passed down in the Jintan area. It has a history of over a hundred years. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, to ward off evil spirits and pray for good fortune, local residents would hang door decorations, festive papers, floral designs, as well as patterns of babies, longevity deities, and Zhong Kui, along with window ornaments featuring flowers, birds, insects, and fish during holidays and celebrations. By the late Qing dynasty, a group of veteran artisans combined traditional lantern and dragon lantern craftsmanship with various knife-carving techniques to create intricate cut patterns. These arts gradually gained popularity in the rural areas of Jintan and have been passed down through generations.

　　The craft of Jintan paper-cutting mainly consists of hand-drawing and hollow-carving. Regardless of the size of the piece, both hand-drawing and hollow-carving follow the rules and requirements of paper-cutting art. This ensures that Jintan paper-cutting achieves clear, complete compositions and shapes while maintaining the interconnection of all the lines. A slight mishap during carving can ruin an entire (stacked) work. For example, in the micro-carving piece “Competing in Bloom,” the peacock’s tail feathers alone consist of more than 12,000 carved lines — the level of detail and difficulty involved is truly remarkable. Similarly, in “Spring River Flower Moon Night,” the cloak of the character features over 20,000 fine carvings, creating an extremely lifelike artistic effect that vividly showcases the silky texture and flowing movement of the garment.

　　Compared to traditional paper-cutting from other regions, Jintan paper-cutting is characterized by flexible formats, diverse carving techniques, richly detailed expressions, and intricately refined compositions. In terms of form, Jintan paper-cutting adopts folk styles such as square cuts, circular designs, central panels, and four-panel screens, while also integrating modern aesthetic forms. Regarding techniques, although most traditional paper-cutting is monochromatic, Jintan paper-cutting often employs comprehensive methods such as color filling, spot coloring, and background coloring to create exquisitely detailed, vivid, and lifelike artistic images. Jintan paper-cutting artists skillfully learn from and incorporate elements of various artistic styles, naturally integrating them into their creations. For instance, in the piece “Village Children,” the tree is carved with the delicate touch characteristic of southern Chinese paper-cutting, while the children are depicted with the bold style of northern folk paper-cutting. This work blends boldness with delicacy, creating a strong contrast and offering a unique aesthetic experience. “Courtyard House” and “Fishing Scene” employ dramatic bird’s-eye perspectives, resulting in bright, refreshing compositions that are rarely seen in traditional paper-cutting. “Water Chestnut Picking” and the “Fishing Village Charm” series are carved in a woodblock printing style, using concise and powerful knife strokes with stark black-and-white contrasts, reflecting a modern aesthetic orientation and taste.

　　The basic material for paper-cutting is paper. Traditional methods usually use a single type of paper, whereas Jintan paper-cutting often incorporates lacquered paper, rice paper, carbonized paper, velvet paper, and especially plastic-coated paper, which produces excellent results. For example, “Holiday Lotus Pond” is carved on lacquered paper, which is sturdy and suitable for color filling. “Four Gentlemen on the Windowsill” uses rice paper, coarse paper, and backing paper, giving the work a humanistic feel. “Narcissus,” “Morning Glory,” “Rose,” and “Lotus” are made with plastic-coated paper, featuring hollow-carved color fills that offer a glossy, three-dimensional appearance with strong decorative appeal. The innovative use of paper materials has also led to new techniques in paper-cutting. For instance, “Returning Home,” created using a layering technique, “Narcissus,” made with a hollow-carving method, and “Spring of Resistance in the South,” produced with color filling and spot coloring, are all results of these material innovations.

　　Through generations of inheritance and development, Jintan paper-cutting has accumulated over 600 varieties, with tens of thousands of individual works. More than a thousand pieces have been selected for exhibitions and competitions, won awards, been published in various newspapers and magazines, or collected by art galleries both in China and abroad. Jintan paper-cutting artists have been invited multiple times to perform live demonstrations overseas and in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, gaining widespread attention through media coverage. In December 1993, Jintan was officially named the “Hometown of Paper-cutting” by the Ministry of Culture. In September 2008, with approval from the Ministry of Culture, the “Fifth (China·Jintan) International Paper-cutting Art Exhibition” was held in Jintan. The event featured over 1,500 paper-cutting artworks from around the world. More than 300 paper-cutting artists, experts, and scholars from countries including the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, as well as from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, along with dozens of media outlets, gathered in the “Land of Fortune East of the River” to discuss and exchange ideas. This significantly elevated the global profile of Jintan paper-cutting. Media from around the world have praised Jintan paper-cutting, acclaiming it as “a thousand forms of beauty, all masterpieces from the skilled hands of Jintan.” Undoubtedly, Jintan paper-cutting plays a unique and valuable role in promoting traditional Chinese art and enhancing cultural exchanges both domestically and internationally.