China Story at the Olympic Village 2

Wood block printing was invented in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and made the production of New Year's Wood Block Paintings much easier. As this art form developed and became more and more popular among Chinese people, its content and functions also increased.

Woodprint New Year painting from Wuqiang is noted¹ as one of China's seven major New Year painting genres². The other six are from Taohuawu of Jiangsu, Yangliuqing of Tianjin, Mianzhu of Sichuan, Yangjiabu of Shandong, Zhuxianzhen of Henan and Foshan of Guangdong.

Liu Guosheng and Kang Yingqin, two folk artists from the Museum of New Year’s Painting in Wuqian County, Hebei Province, are at the Olympic Village to show how to make traditional Chinese New Year’s Painting on the spot.

Paper-cuts

Paper-cuts refer to handicrafts made by cutting paper with scissors to form different patterns and pasting them on walls, windows, doors and ceilings. With their long history, paper-cuts, which originated in China, have been very popular among the ordinary people of China.

Chinese paper-cuts are rich in content. The auspicious³ designs symbolize⁴ good luck and the avoidance of evil. The child, lotus and bottle gourd⁵ designs suggest a family with a large number of children and grandchildren. Domestic birds, livestock⁶, fruit, fish and worms are also familiar objects depicted⁷ by Chinese farmers. There are some special paper-cuts of traditional design used as patterns for embroidering⁸ clothes, shoes, hats, pillows, bed curtains and door curtains.

Sun Erlin, the paper-cut artist from the Inner Mongolian Autonomous⁹ Region, and Liao Yunwu, the paper-cut artist from Fujian Province, were invited to the Olympic Village to display the live show of paper cutting. Born into a family of paper-cuts artists, Sun Erlin inherits her family’s cutting style and her works are tinted¹⁰ with the nomadic¹¹ culture in the grassland¹². Liao Yunwu is known for cutting paper portraits at a high speed and cutting paper with his eyes blinded.