Steven Gu and his Paper-cutting
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Steven Gu and his Paper-cutting |
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Scherenschnitte
(paper-cutting) is a highly technical art form requiring creativity, skill
and experience. All my paper-cutting pictures are cut out by hand with a knife, no
drill, punch or laser involved. Some fine lines are only 0.5mm wide.
Every design of Scherenschnitte, no matter how
simple or complicated, must be formed as an unbroken, continuous piece.
With careful study you will notice the clever links to connect integral parts of
the picture without spoiling the picture. The
paper I use is very thin and soft; hence the cutout can lift up after special
and professional framing and give you 3-D effect naturally.
The progress of Scherenschnitte is as complicated and fragile as Scherenschnitte itself. When paper was invented during the Han dynasty (B.C.200), Scherenschnitte was first developed for use in creating embroidery patterns and window’s decoration. By the Tang dynasty (A.D.600), it became a highly popular art form among both the nobility and the peasants.
However, the art of Scherenschnitte is getting lost. Many of this folk art's tradition, which is passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, were never recorded. Thousands of actual cuttings have been lost to time: early inks ate away at the paper they embellished, and the pioneers of Scherenschnitte frequently discarded their work. Even treasured Scherenschnitte, stored in family bibles or in albums, were misplaced. Nevertheless, bits and pieces of tantalizing historical information emerge from surviving cut work (much of it now in private collections and museums), from research, and from the Scherenschnitte stories that are told and retold through time.