One of the most popular folk art of traditional lanterns

Paper-cutting is one of the most popular folk arts in China, especially in Northeast China. Every year, every family must post paper-cutting. Today, paper-cutting is more used for decoration, so people in Guangdong may also borrow it. Paper-cut can be used to decorate walls, doors, windows, room columns, mirrors, etc., and can also be used to decorate traditional lanterns. There are two ways to cut paper in traditional lanterns: scissors and knife. Scissors shearing is the use of scissors. After cutting, a few sheets (generally no more than 8) are cut and pasted together. Finally, sharp scissors are used to process the pattern. The knife and scissors first fold the paper into several stacks, put it on a soft mixture of ash and animal fat, and then slowly scribe it with a knife. Paper-cut artists generally hold the knife vertically and process the paper into the desired pattern according to a certain model. Compared with scissors, one advantage of knife-cutting is that it can be processed into multiple paper-cut patterns at a time. There are three types of paper-cut traditional lanterns in the Lantern Festival: One type is based on patterns. For example, cut a five-grain bee and paste a traditional lantern, which stands for "Five Grain Harvest (lamp)"; cut a magpie plum decoration on a lamp, called "magpie plum (lamp) plum"; cut five dolls to mean "Wuzideng (lamp) branch" ". The other type is based on text. This is consistent with the text in the calligraphy on the traditional lantern mentioned earlier. Then there is the integration of the pattern and the text. Combining the image thinking of the pattern with the rational thinking of the text will naturally become a unique scenery in the Lantern Festival home.