Investigation Of Current Situation Of Inheritance And Safeguarding Of Paper Cutting In Wei (Yu) County

Paper cutting commonly uses paper as its main material. By utilizing tools including but not limited to scissors, gravers, burins, and engraving discs (painting discs), practitioners use cutting, carving, engraving, chiseling, pasting, dyeing, and painting techniques and etc. to perform practices of folk arts together with creation of pictures, motifs, and patterns. Paper cutting works are mainly used to decorate living spaces to meet people’s aesthetic needs. Simultaneously, it is widely used as samples of other forms of art creations such as embroideries and spray paintings. Nowadays, paper cutting has spread widely all over China, which makes the art form carrying unique geographical and ethnic characteristics. Located at an intersection of Yanshan Mountain, Taihang Mountain, and Hengshan Mountain, Wei county has a unique geographical position. This makes Wei county reserves vivid local culture, especially paper cutting in Wei county, as it has been regarded as the most symbolic cultural expression form in Wei county.During long-term of living and productive practices, people in Wei county created an engraving and dyeing pattern of paper cutting. Carved and dyed by using Chinese art paper, paper cutting in Wei county is the only drip colored paper cutting form in China that mainly adopted carving and engraving methods. As paper cutting in Wei county is characterized by its full compositions, vivid images, contrasting colors, and rich in local rural flavor, it was inscribed into the first batch of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List of China.By collecting and summarizing first-hand information of on-site investigations and interviews, this paper aims at finding out main problems during safeguarding and inheritance of paper cutting in Wei county and propose possible solutions. Through analysis and research, the author puts forward a series of strategies and suggestions including aspects of paying attentions to talent trainings, strengthening protection of ecological environments, innovations based on inheritance of "core-techniques", improving production techniques, enhancing theoretical researches, attaching importance to intellectual property protections, and etc. in order to provide relative theoretical supports to safeguarding and inheritance of paper cutting in Wei county.