The Origins of Paper Cutting

Paper cutting is an ancient craft originating from the Far East. The oldest surviving paper cut is a symmetrical circle from the 6th century found in Xinjiang, China.

In China, papercuts were originally used as patterns for embroidery. Modern papercuts are chiefly decorative; entrances decorated with paper cuts are supposed to bring good luck. Red is the most commonly used colour.

Work by Pan Qiuai

Kiri-e is the Japanese art of paper cutting. Papercuts in Japan were originally used as stencils for printing textiles.

Work by Aoyama Hina

Eventually the craft traveled along the trade routes to Europe where monks and nuns painstakingly created religious texts boasting elaborate cut designs. Many early European papercuts focused on religious symbols.

By the 17th century paper cutting had become a folk art form in Germany. Designs were often created by folding the paper, producing symmetrical black on white images.

In Britain and France, people began to use paper cutting to create silhouette portraits. The first silhouettes were drawn life-size: produced by lighting the model's head with candles, and drawing the shadow on to paper. These were coloured black, cut out, and mounted on white paper.

 1778

Papercutting continues to be a unique and varied craft. Papel picardo (the Mexican art of paper cutting) is frequently used to produce decorative banners. Similarly, Swedish homes are decorated with paper cut flowers at Christmas.

Papel picardo

In China modern paper cutting has become a commercial industry, and continues to be popular during Chinese New Year and at weddings.

"Today, artists continue to breathe new life into this art form and push it forwards, while still retaining the traditional key elements - paper, a cutting tool and their imagination."

- Emily Hogarth

Image credits:

Red bull: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/22/content_10395515.htm
Aoyama Hina: https://designramblings.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/papercutting_aoyamahina.jpg
Religious: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fc/6c/9c/fc6c9c69973956911f1580efcfc8afe9.jpg
Symmetrical black on white: http://livinginnyon.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Paper-cut-1.jpg
Silhouette: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papercutting
Papel picardo: http://plentyofcolour.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/plentyofcolour_papel_10.png

Until next week...

-Karen