Historical Background

Foshan Paper Cutting has already been listed as one of national intangible culture heritage. Paper cutting is the art of cutting paper designs. As a business product, Foshan Paper Cutting with millennium history originally dated back to Song Dynasty and reached its heyday in the period of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty. From the perspective in creating, there are four main types of Foshan Paper Cutting including pure color cutting, lining cutting, copper written material cutting and copper chiseling cutting. Each type has its own features. The themes of traditional Foshan Paper Cutting include commerce, culture and folk-customs. It is society and locals that determine the content and forms. Festival auspicious signs, evilness exorcising, fortune blessings and longevity and fertility are always the main themes. It is widely believed that the applicability of Foshan Paper Cutting is very flexible, which is also a reason why it has been popular for centuries in the folk with a huge market.

　　(Foshan Paper Cutting of the North God)

Chen Yongcai, born in 1941, was a local master of paper cutting in Foshan. He has won the prize of the International Paper Cutting Exhibition mainly held by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2004. He shares his ideas about Foshan Paper Cutting with us.

China is the birthplace of the art of paper cutting, while Foshan Paper Cutting has distinctive local features. Actually Foshan Paper Cutting was born from the origin of a business society and developed profoundly with the market and commercialization. As Chen mentions, beginning from Ming Dynasty till now, it was the tradition of commercialization that made Foshan an important producer and seller of paper cutting in China. And this was very distinctive from other domestic regions where paper cutting was simply traded as a folk work by women.

The unique business wisdom is supposed to be the main reason for the commercialization of Foshan Paper Cutting. Chen still remembers the heyday of Foshan Paper Cutting. Over 30 paper cutting workshops and more than 300 relevant practitioners busy doing business on Fulu Road made there a well-know paper cutting street. Paper cutting products were sold far way to Southeastern Asia and the Americas during that period.

The development of utilizing small carving knives in Foshan Paper Cutting satisfied the demand of large production. The advantage was that practitioners could deal with several cutting patterns at the same time, which also made paper cutting more smooth and exquisite. The famous Chinese writer Mr. Guo Moruo made a comment about paper-cutting as followed: “Once I saw window paper-cuts in North, being innocent and sincere, and now I discover that carving paper-cuts in South , unprecedentedly exquisite and dainty, I am conquered by its ingenious and delicacy, the beauty in folk never fades”.

　　(paper cutting of folk-customs)

According to Chen, another example that tells the history of commercialization of Foshan Paper Cutting is that, paper cutting had been a specialized business for both men and women in Foshan with professional workshops, producers and businessmen, making it an out-and-out folk cultural commercialization. There were formed markets in Ming Dynasty and organizations in Qing Dynasty. Organizations including Menjian, Fushu, Xiqian and Jinhua kept running the business of Foshan Paper Cutting.

Display in Canton Fair 

After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, Foshan Paper Cutting still keeps the influence over Southeastern Asia. Foshan Paper Cutting emerged at Canton Fair since the 1960s. Chen adds that, they would display their art work in every Canton Fair, attracting businessmen from Southeastern Asia and the Americas who always made large orders.

Foshan Paper Cutting came back to Canton Fair in 1977 with new designs beyond traditional patterns of festivals and 12 Chinese zodiac. The innovation was also popular among foreign businessmen and received lots of overseas orders. Many Japanese organizations came particularly for visiting and learning paper cutting in Foshan in the 1990s. However, as paper cutting became weakened at present, Foshan Paper Cutting disappeared from Canton Fair. Chen always talks about the heyday of paper cutting when they had to trained over 200 young people to meet the great exported demand during the Lunar New Year Festival.

　　(paper cutting of Foshan Century Lotus Sports Center)

Remain Popular in Foreign Regions

Chen keeps mentioning the impressive moment a few years ago when he was invited to interact with paper cutting professionals from Switzerland, and many other guests and citizens.

As a matter of fact, Foshan Paper Cutting was introduced into Europe from the Balkans in the 1600s and soon became a trend in many countries. Learning paper cutting correspondingly became one of a required course for elegant ladies from middle class.

Nowadays, the degree of participation in paper cutting in Europe is much higher than that in China. Like in Switzerland, the number of members of paper cutting associations is also much larger than that in Foshan. As for innovation, Swiss work mainly reflects real life and the beautiful domestic nature, which is popular among Europeans. Although the chairman of European Paper Cutting Association indicated humbly that they were finally here in the hometown of paper cutting, Chen still feels upset. It is because except for Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition Centers and the Foshan Folk Art Research Institute, it is hardly to find paper cutting workshops in Foshan, while Europeans are still fond of paper cutting so much.

　　(paper cutting of 56 ethnic groups of China)

Three main aspects in the value of Foshan Paper Cutting are as followed:

the historical value of studying folk-customs in Pearl River Delta

the art value of Foshan features

the economic value of Foshan culture commercialization

Nowadays, the situation of Foshan Paper Cutting is far too optimistic, because of a lack of worthy successors. Foshan Paper Cutting by Copper Chisel is probably lost. It is important to take out powerful protection to inherit Foshan Paper Cutting and carry it forward.

(written by Clair)