Papercutting is the art of creating decorative images by cutting from a single sheet of paper. Learn its history from Chinese jianzhi to Dutch knipkunst.
In the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, there is a pair of papercuttings made in 1759 to mark the wedding of Catharina Heshuysen and Anthony Bruyning. Each is no larger than 20 by 25 centimeters, cut from a single sheet of white paper with a penknife. Above the couple's coats of arms, two doves meet beak to beak, joined by a flaming heart. Below, flowers burst from a vase. Dolphins twist in the corners. The whole is topped by a coronet. Not a single line was drawn first. The design exists only as cuts, the negative space defining the image. The maker is unknown. The work is unsigned, like almost all papercuttings of its period. But the skill required to produce it, the steady hand and the spatial planning needed to cut a composition this complex from a single sheet without a draft, places it firmly in the realm of fine craft.
Papercutting is the art of creating decorative images by cutting designs from a single sheet of paper. The paper is the medium and the cutting tool is the only instrument. No drawing, no printing, no color is added. The image emerges from the relationship between the paper that remains and the paper that is removed. The practice has existed for over 1,500 years and has developed independently in China, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, with each tradition producing distinct visual languages, techniques, and cultural functions.
This entry covers what papercutting is, how it developed across cultures, which practitioners and traditions defined it, and how the practice functions today in both traditional and contemporary contexts.
Papercutting takes paper as its carrier and uses hollowing technology to produce what a 2025 study in Art and Design calls "virtual reality," shaping specific decorative patterns that bring people a "simple, vivid and interesting visual experience." The paper that remains forms the positive space, the image. The paper that is removed forms the negative space, the ground. In the best papercuttings, the relationship between positive and negative is so carefully balanced that neither can be understood without the other. Cut too much and the structure collapses. Cut too little and the image does not appear.
The tools are simple: scissors or a knife, depending on the tradition. Chinese papercutting traditionally uses scissors, producing works with fluid, organic lines. European papercutting more often uses knives, allowing finer detail and more architectural precision. The paper is typically a single color, usually red in the Chinese tradition and white in the European tradition, though multi-layered and colored papercuttings exist in both. The work is often symmetrical, produced by folding the paper before cutting, so that a single cut produces multiple mirrored elements.
A 2026 study published in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities used K-prototypes clustering and hierarchical clustering to classify 128 Chinese papercutting samples, dividing them into three categories: Class 1 (high-complexity symmetrical patterns carrying the Confucian philosophical metaphor of the golden mean), Class 2 (life-themed positive engraving reflecting the Taoist view of nature), and Class 3 (folk symbols embodying collective cultural memory). The study demonstrated that papercutting's visual features encode deep cultural and philosophical meanings that can be systematically analyzed. Read the study at Digital Scholarship in the Humanities.
Papercutting originated in the Guanzhong area to the Central Plains area of China. According to existing archaeological remains, it has a history of more than 1,500 years. Because paper is extremely perishable and hard to preserve, there are few papercutting objects in archaeological discoveries. The earliest surviving paper-cutting objects in China are five round flower paper cuttings from the Northern Dynasty, unearthed from the ancient tomb of Astana in Turpan Basin, Xinjiang.
The rudiment of papercutting predates the emergence of paper itself. It originated from ancient practices of prayer to gods and ancestor worship, and is linked to the arts and crafts of various periods, including pottery, metal, and leather carving techniques. The Records of the Grand Historian records the story of King Cheng of Zhou using Tung tree leaves to cut into jade shapes, suggesting that the aesthetic and technical conditions for papercutting existed before paper was invented.
During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), papercutting underwent its first great expansion. Content and theme became more colorful, and papercutting was widely used to express feelings and beliefs in folk activities including sacrifice, blessings, and entertainment. During the Southern Song Dynasty, professional papercutting artists appeared, most working in window decorations, colored lights, and gift decoration. During the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1912), papercutting penetrated all aspects of life, and workshops and masters began to appear, with the art showing diverse shapes, rich types, and auspicious meanings influenced by traditional Chinese painting. Read the full study at Art and Design.
European papercutting developed independently from the Chinese tradition. In Germany and Switzerland, scherenschnitte (scissor cuts) produced symmetrical designs, often of religious or pastoral subjects. In the Netherlands, knipkunst reached extraordinary refinement in the 17th and 18th centuries. Joanna Koerten (1650-1715), working in Amsterdam, was the most celebrated Dutch paper-cutting artist of the Golden Age. Her works, cut from white paper with small scissors, included portraits, landscapes, and decorative compositions that were collected by wealthy patrons and presented as gifts to visiting dignitaries.
A 2025-2026 research project at the Rijksmuseum, led by intern Olivia Dawe under Curator of Prints Joyce Zelen, organized the museum's collection of papercuttings and prepared a cabinet exhibition on Dutch papercutting from the 17th to the early 18th century. The research focused on huwelijksknipsels (wedding papercuttings), a short-lived but highly popular 18th-century trend among Amsterdam's wealthy merchant class. These cut-out place cards came in pairs, one for the bride and one for the groom, featuring motifs of abundance and fertility: swirling flowers, cornucopias, cupids, and doves. All are unsigned. Read the research findings at The Art of Information.
Jewish papercutting developed as a distinct tradition, used for ketubot (marriage contracts), mizrach plaques (indicating the direction of Jerusalem), and other ceremonial and decorative purposes. The tradition combines calligraphic elements, including Hebrew text, with floral and geometric patterns. Jewish papercuttings were made for specific occasions and were often destroyed after use, which makes surviving examples rare. The tradition was nearly lost during the Holocaust but has been revived in recent decades by contemporary artists.
Papel picado (perforated paper) is the Mexican tradition of papercutting, used for decorative banners during Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and other celebrations. The banners are made by stacking sheets of tissue paper and cutting designs through all layers at once using chisels. The resulting banners, with their images of skulls, flowers, and geometric patterns, are hung across streets and altars. The tradition is believed to have originated in the state of Puebla, where it has been practiced since the 19th century.
Koerten was the most celebrated paper-cutting artist of the Dutch Golden Age. Working in Amsterdam, she produced portraits, landscapes, and decorative compositions cut from white paper with small scissors. Her clients included prominent figures of the Dutch Republic, and her work was valued at prices comparable to paintings. The Rijksmuseum holds examples of her work, which demonstrate a level of detail and compositional sophistication that places them alongside the finest decorative arts of the period.
Reiniger was a German animator who used papercutting as the basis for silhouette animation. Her The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), produced using hand-cut paper silhouettes photographed frame by frame on a multiplane camera, is the oldest surviving animated feature film. Reiniger cut every silhouette by hand, producing thousands of individual figures for the film. Her work demonstrates that papercutting could serve as the foundation for a major cinematic art form, not merely a decorative craft.
Ku Shu-lan was a Chinese papercutting artist from Xunyi County, Shaanxi Province, who began producing papercuttings in the 1980s and gained national recognition in the 1990s. Her work is characterized by bold, colorful compositions that combine traditional folk motifs with personal imagery. Her self-portrait as the "Goddess of Paper" became one of the most reproduced images in Chinese folk art. Ku Shu-lan's work demonstrates that papercutting, despite its folk origins, can produce work of individual artistic genius.
Contemporary papercutting has moved beyond its folk and decorative origins into gallery contexts. Artists like Bovey Lee, a Hong Kong-born artist working in the United States, uses a knife to cut intricate compositions from rice paper that combine traditional Chinese imagery with contemporary political and social commentary. Her work The Tightrope Walker (2011) shows a figure balancing on a rope made of text, with a cityscape of skyscrapers below. Peter Callesen, a Danish artist, cuts single sheets of A4 paper to produce three-dimensional sculptures that rise from the flat sheet, combining papercutting with kirigami principles.
A 2026 study published in Fashion Technology investigated the material mechanisms underlying the visual language of Northern Shaanxi paper-cutting. The study proposed "material translation" as a contemporary approach for rearticulating traditional craft, demonstrating that visual elements such as line, plane, volume, and color are not merely aesthetic motifs but the result of coordinated interactions among material properties, tool constraints, and craft logic. The study formulated a dialectical method of "preserving the spirit" and "transforming the form," providing a theoretical basis for reconstructing material sensibility within digital design contexts. Read the study at Fashion Technology.
A 2026 comparative study published in the Academic Journal of History and Culture analyzed the expressive techniques and aesthetic implications of Chinese and Western papercutting, finding that the different expressive styles are primarily due to differences in geographical location and cultural characteristics. Chinese papercutting emphasizes continuous line and positive engraving, while Western papercutting tends toward silhouette and negative space. Read the study at Academic Journal of History and Culture.
Chinese papercutting was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. The tradition continues to be practiced widely in China, particularly in rural areas where it remains part of festival and wedding customs. Contemporary Chinese papercutting artists are increasingly integrating traditional techniques with digital design tools, and VR technology is being explored as a means of preserving and transmitting the craft. A 2024 study by Zhao and Kim in Heliyon examined the impact of traditional Chinese papercutting in digital protection for intangible cultural heritage under virtual reality technology.
Papercutting is closely related to kirigami, the Japanese art of cutting and folding paper, which extends papercutting principles into three-dimensional structures. It connects to origami, which shares the paper medium but uses folding rather than cutting. The Chinese tradition links to Chinese landscape painting, where similar aesthetic principles of positive and negative space operate. The European silhouette tradition connects to woodcut, where the relationship between carved and uncarved surface produces the image. For more on paper as an art medium, read our post on paper art, or explore our guide to collage as art to see how cut paper functions in a different artistic context.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam holds an outstanding collection of Dutch papercuttings from the 17th to 18th centuries, including works by Joanna Koerten and the wedding papercuttings documented in the 2025-2026 research project. The China National Art Museum in Beijing holds Chinese papercuttings, including works by Ku Shu-lan. The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe holds papercuttings from multiple traditions. The Folk Art Museum in Oaxaca, Mexico, holds examples of papel picado.
For contemporary papercutting, galleries representing artists like Bovey Lee and Peter Callesen regularly exhibit their work. The Chinese papercutting tradition is best seen in situ during festivals, particularly during Chinese New Year, when papercuttings are displayed in homes and shops throughout China. To understand how papercutting connects to broader paper art traditions, read our entries on kirigami and origami, or explore our post on paper art for a comprehensive look at paper as a sculptural medium.
Discover other art terms you might be interested in
Calligraphy is the art of expressive writing across Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, and Western traditions. Learn its history, key practitioners, and modern revival.
Kirigami is the Japanese art of cutting and folding paper to create three-dimensional forms. Learn its history, key practitioners, and engineering applications.
Origami is the art of folding paper into representational and abstract forms without cutting. Learn its history from Japanese ceremony to computational design.
Read more about this topic on our blog
The art school vs. self-taught debate generates more heat than light. This guide cuts through the rhetoric to explain what art school actually gives you, what it doesn't, and how self-taught artists can build what school would have provided.
Master the building blocks of drawing, from contour lines and cross-hatching to one-point perspective. Learn the techniques that every great artist started with and how to develop your own drawing skills.
Learn how to look at art with confidence. A practical beginner guide to slowing down, reading visual elements, and engaging with any artwork meaningfully.