Paper Cutting Museum

Rating: 4/5

It is quite impressive that they can cut that much detail into a piece of paper. Yangzhou City is one of the earliest regions in China prevalent with the paper-cut art. The Yangzhou paper-cut is comely and fluent in lines, refined and exquisite in composition with exaggerated and compact images, constituting one of the representatives of folk paper-cut art in South China. One of the paper cutting that impressed me was the 100 cutting of Chrysanthemum. It is amazing as one flower could be cut to so many different shapes. The petals are also very refined, looking as though with just one wrong snip, the whole Chrysanthemum cutting would be ruined. All the paper cuttings shown there are very detailed and made me wonder how they managed to do that. From the paper cuttings, I can tell that paper cutting is not that easy as it seems and requires many years of experience for detailed ones as well as great amount of patience. We were given a hands-on experience of cutting one of the twelve zodiac animals. At first we thought that paper cutting was a piece of cake. However, we realized that it was very difficult and many were frustrated, wanting to give up. Many of our animals had different severed parts, severely "abused". However, with just on instructor to a large group of 10-12 students, I doubt all of the students had gotten help and advices from the instructor. This place is for those that loves to appreciate or find out more about Chinese paper cutting.

Entrance to Paper Cutting Museum.

Building of Paper Cutting Musuem.The entrance as well as the building of the Paper Cutting Museum gives us a feeling of the olden past.This is because the building structure is similar to those in the past.There is a pair of lanterns hanging in front of the building and the entrance because in the past their were no light bulbs and thus they light up these lanterns to allow people to see and enter their shop.The ceiling has a arc shape and is pointed upwards at the sides,just like those buildings in the past.

Paper Cutting of a Phoenix and a Dragon.You can see that Chinese in the pass strongly believes in myths and legends.The phoenix and dragon were only meant for the royalties back then.The people believes that these animals were mystical and had special powers.The early Chinese believed in four magical, spiritual and benevolent animals; the Dragon, the Phoenix, the Tortoise and the Unicorn. The Dragon was the most revered of all. IThe Feng-huang or Fung; the "vermilion bird," the "substance of the flame." The Feng has the head and comb of a pheasant and the tail of a peacock. It personifies the primordial force of the heavens. When portrayed with the dragon as a symbol of the Emperor, the phoenix becomes entirely feminine as the Empress, and together they represent both aspects of imperial power. It could also be meant for marriage harmony or the complete yin-yang mutual interdependence in the universe in terms of duality. 

Intricate cutting of flowers and animals.It is amazing to see such cuttings because not only is the cutting very small,it is also very intricate,with the finest details of the flowers and animals.It is also dyed which make it even pretty and eye catching.We can tell that these people need patience as with one wrong cut,the whole artwork is ruined.We would normally get very angry and frustrated if such a thing happens.Hence we would most likely give up on cutting the paper.That may be one of the reasons why such jobs are being more rare and not sought after.

Blue Vase cutting on a piece of  shiny blue paper.This cutting should be a recent one.This is because the paper is reflective blue surface.I think that cutting on this type of material is highly likely to cut oneself as the paper is hard and it has an intricate and small fine details.This paper cutting attracted me the most and stands out amongst the other paper cutting.This is because i had never taught that paper cutting would include cutting on such a material.My idea is that paper cutting should be cut on those paper that are flimsy and rough.

9 out of 100 of the paper-cut chrysanthemum

Another 9 out of 100 of the paper-cut chrysanthemum.This is also very special as the paper cutter is very observant and/or creative.He/She is able to come up with 100 designs of the chrysanthemum.To us,chrysanthemum is just chrysanthemum,with yellow or white petals and green leaves.We seldom observe the shape and length of the petals and the leaves.We can see that chrysanthemum actually can exist in many forms.It is just that we do not go and notice them.It may be due to the fact that we are very unobservant or that we are too busy with other things to slowly enjoy nature.