Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Toy gun with targets depicting the Gang of Four (EA2010.289)

Papercuts

The folk art tradition of papercutting has a history of some 2000 years in China. Simple designs were pasted on doors and windows at New Year, along with brightly coloured woodblock prints. From the 1930s onwards, both papercuts and woodblock prints were used for promoting and circulating political ideas. The woodcut images drew on international ideas of modernism and socialism and were part of an urban intellectual movement with the writer Lu Xun at its centre. The papercuts, however, remained within local rural practices. The examples in the Ashmolean collection come from a number of provinces in both north and south China (for example, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hubei and Jiangsu) each with local papercutting characteristics. Even since these pieces were produced, the papercut has declined as a folk art and is now practised mostly in Beijing.

There are two papercut techniques: scissor-cutting and knife-cutting. Scissor-cutting is the older technique, which uses thinner paper, folded several times and cut with scissors. It is mostly used by women in the countryside producing folk designs. Knife-cutting, in which stacks of between 30 and 70 sheets of thicker paper are cut with a knife, is the technique used for commercial, mostly male, production of a wider range of subject matter.

Two youths with a banner reading Changzheng dui (EA2008.31.a)   Three Red Guards with Chairman Mao banner (EA2008.31.b)

Mountain view of Nanjing Bridge (EA2008.38.c)   Aerial view of Nanjing Bridge (EA2008.38.d)

Silk-woven images

These woven silks are very close reproductions of images originally from photographs or brush and ink paintings and calligraphy. Silk versions of well-known works of painting and calligraphy were first made in the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), and continued to be produced through the Ming and Qing dynasties as both tapestry-weaves and embroideries. An entire section of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) imperial collection catalogue of paintings is devoted to silk reproductions, listed under the original artists. The examples here were woven in Hangzhou in modern Zhejiang province, east China. Zhejiang was a leading centre of silk production from the 3rd century onwards, and as the capital city of the Southern Song dynasty, became the location of imperial silk workshops from that period onwards.

In the 20th century, numerous silk weaving factories in Hangzhou produced pictorial silks ranging from home furnishings, decorated with landscapes, to small souvenirs. Many panels bearing Mao’s image copy the photographs in wide circulation on posters. Standard images of Marx, Engels and Stalin were also produced in quantity.

Red Glow (EA2010.284)

Mao Zhuxi in Shaanbei (EA2010.279)   Comrade Mao Zedong (EA2010.280)

Calligraphy of Chairman Mao's poem Yellow Crane Tower (EA2010.282)

Matchboxes

Matchboxes, and match production, were introduced in China by Western manufacturers in the 19th century. The earliest boxes are illustrated with motifs from Chinese popular legend. Slightly later boxes commemorate events such as the Empress Dowager’s 60th birthday in 1894, or the 1911 revolution. The range of motifs that appears on matchboxes is comparable to those on postage stamps, but the circulation is even wider.

During the Cultural Revolution overt political messages do not dominate, rather the boxes carried images promoting industrial progress, public health, safety, literacy, and self-improvement. Landscapes and historical or literary subjects are also common, and many of the motifs are the same as those found in posters and papercuts. Production of matchboxes was localised. Even on the simplest boxes, where the factory name is printed on a plain ground, the calligraphy is distinct in style and sometimes relates to local history.

Matchbox depicting Yuhua Terrace, Nanjing (EA2010.120.1)   Matchbox depicting Nanjing Bridge (EA2010.120.2)

Matchbox depicting new construction in Hebei (EA2010.157.1)   Matchbox depicting new construction in Hebei (EA2010.157.2)   Matchbox depicting new construction in Hebei (EA2010.157.7)   Matchbox depicting new construction in Hebei (EA2010.157.8)

Matchbox depicting a figure from Xinjiang (EA2010.229.2)   Matchbox depicting a figure reading (EA2010.186.3)