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

A-Z Silhouette Series

Yesterday I posted the final papercut that completed the ongoing A-Z silhouette series, almost 4 weeks after I posted the first silhouette of David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. His familiar face was cut from black card; the simple image proving more effective than I had anticipated.

Ziggy Stardust - Lana Del Rey

Ziggy was shortly followed by a 1960's Bob Dylan, with distinctive shades and harmonica, and singer Lana Del Rey. Originally cut from black card, I decided pink card with glitter details would better convey Rey's girlish naivety.

Bob Dylan - Alex Turner

By now I was finding it more interesting to cut contemporary faces (we've all seen endless products covered with the faces of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean) such as Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys. I could've cut infinite faces (there are many writers, musicians, and artists who I admire greatly), but I knew I needed to narrow the project down.

Daniel Glover - Mikaela Evans

I cut out the faces of musician Daniel Glover and writer Mikaela Evans, who I have contact with via twitter. This allowed me to share the papercuts with them and receive immediate feedback. Their positive responses (Glover shared the papercut on his facebook page) confirmed my intentions to continue with the project.

I settled on an achievable A-Z series and made a list of current popular figures, balancing it almost 50/50 male/female. Who would I cut out for X?! I decided to figure that one out later...

  Harry Potter - Jameela Jamil

I photographed all of the silhouettes in the same style: against a white background beside my gold peacock scissors. I knew consistency was important to tie all of the images together as one complete series.

My favourite papercuts of the A-Z silhouette series:

 Queen Elizabeth ii - Stephen Fry

  Taylor Swift - Idris Elba

The complete A-Z silhouette series is made up of 26 28 papercuts (2 D's and 2 Lana Del Rey's). The series can be viewed in full here.

Which are your favourite silhouettes of the series?

Until next week...

-Karen