Xuzhou Paper-Cutting

Xuzhou paper-cutting circulates through Pizhou, Xinyi and Pei County as an important branch of northern folk paper-cutting; in 2008 it entered the national ICH list as an extended item under traditional arts (project code Ⅶ-16). Chinese paper-cutting as a whole was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

Xuzhou paper-cutting is bold and unadorned, full in composition, with subjects drawn from farming, festivals, myth, flowers and birds; it uses both monochrome and dyed techniques, and the work of representative inheritors such as Wang Guiying carries a deep rural flavour, in vivid contrast to the delicate southern style.

Xuzhou paper-cutting carries the festival beliefs and everyday aesthetics of rural northern Jiangsu, forms an important part of Chinese folk art, and holds real value for studying how northern and southern paper-cutting styles differ and meet.