The History of Chinese Paper-cutting（V）

In the dynasty of Ming and Qing, the skill of folk paper-cutting gradually moves to maturity and reaches its peak.
The application of folk paper-cutting gets a wider range, nearly all the folk lanterns, fan, embroidery, etc, are decorated with paper-cutting patterns. Actually, in the folk of Chinese country, people more often use paper-cutting as accessories of household to beautify the home environment. For example, they like to paste various patterns of paper-cutting on doors, windows, cabinets, ceiling and any other place that they can paste.
In addition to the paper-cutting craftsmen who appeared after Southern Song Dynasty, the most basic team of Chinese folk paper-cutting arts and crafts is those rural women.
Nu Gong, also called Needlework, means traditional handmade skills of women, including textile, knitting, sewing, embroidery, pulp dyeing, etc. Nu Gong is an important perfect sign to Chinese traditional women. So paper-cutting, as one of required skills of Nu Gong, becomes a crafts that girls must learn from childhood. They get paper-cutting patterns from their mother or sisters, and then copy and constantly repeat, then depict familiar and loved things, such as fish and insects, flowers and trees, pavilions and bridges landscape. Finally, they could reach the state of arbitrary, easily cutting out the new patterns as they want.
The arts of Chinese folk paper-cutting, like an ivy, old and evergreen. It has become a symbol for its universality, practical, and aesthetic.