Top ten artifacts in Shaanxi

Paper Cutting

Shaanxi folk paper cutting is characteristic of a unique local style. For example, the paper cutting popular in northern Shaanxi Plateau looks powerful, strong, bold, and unrestrained; the paper cutting popular in central Shaanxi Plain is exquisite but simple, clever but beautiful; the patterns of plants are very popular for paper cutting in southern Shaanxi, which are dense while spaced, balanced between deficiency and excess and whose decorations are very funny.

Tao Xun

Tao Xun is a type of musical instrument made of pottery clay in ancient times. It is the size of a goose egg. It has six holes, with the top one being the mouthpiece. It is one of the oldest musical instruments in China, with a history of about 7,000 years.

Paintings of Farmers in Hu County

Hu County is the famous hometown of paintings of farmers in China. It originated from the end of the 1950s. There are more than 2,000 people who can draw farmers’ paintings.

Shadow Puppet

Appeared and flourished in the Northern Song Dynasty. Shadow Puppet in the Guanzhong Region of Shaanxi Province has long enjoyed a good reputation in China. Aside from the heroic, thick and strong, and sonorous music for voices in its performance, Shadow Puppet is also exquisitely made and very enchanting.

Fabric Art

Fabric Art is a type of three-dimensional artifact made of cloth, the making of which adopts embroidery, splicing, pasting, stitching, padding and other such techniques. According to its uses, it can be divided into four types. There are fabric toys made for children to play with. Wedding fabrics function to beautify bridal chambers, also in the hope of avoiding evil spirits and enjoying a life of ease and comfort, as well as procreation and propagation. Birthday celebration fabrics are the ones made by daughters to give to the elderly, with the meaning of longevity and prosperity of the clan. The last type refers to all kinds of sachets for the Dragon Boat Festival, which functions to exorcise evil spirits and protect life.

Luochuan Embroidery in Wool and Linen

Luochuan Embroidery in Wool and Linen uses gunny-bags as the background and adopts colorful woolen yarns and cotton threads as raw materials. It is made by the techniques of pricking, weaving, and embroidering. With the emerging of folk art around the world, Luochuan Embroidery in Wool and Linen has already become the artifacts and souvenirs that international and domestic artists and tourists scramble for.

Fengxiang Color-Painted Clay Sculpture

Fengxiang Color-Painted Clay Sculpture, also called “clay dolls,” originated from the Ming Dynasty, with a history of more than 500 years. It is made of a type of very sticky “plate-soil,” which goes through kneading, molding, turning of earthen bricks, and color painting. The most representative works are tiger and lion, which symbolize giving birth to children, protection over life, and protection over household, and the enjoyment of an easy and comfortable life. It is extensively used for folk cultural events.

Fengxiang New Year Picture on Wooden Board

Fengxiang New Year Picture on Wooden Board is a gem of the woodcut picture family in China, with a history of more than 500 years. It can be called a pioneer of the printing industry. It inherits and carries forward the earliest wood carving techniques in China, combines color painting and freehand sketching techniques, and forms a unique style in which color is loud but deep and lines are powerful and smooth, so as to demonstrate the love of peasants for their land and their longing for a wealthy life.

Smoked Painting in Fu County

Smoked Painting in Fu County originated from dish rack – a type of ancient folk ornamental artifact in Fu County. Dish rack is a piece of furniture which different rural counties in the south of Yan’an use as a tiled jar to place rice, flour, and tableware. It is similar to today’s kitchen cabinet in function.

The dish rack is capacious at the front, to beautify the living room and keep off bugs and dust. People stick smoked paintings to the rack, thus forming a unique folk art characteristic of local style. Smoked painting has the artistic effects of both paper cutting and woodcut pictures. It is a very special type of art among Chinese folk artifacts. Smoked painting and paper cutting in Fu County are perfect pair to help Fu County win the title of “Hometown of Chinese Folk Art.” In 1995, the Ministry of Culture named Fu County in Shaanxi as “Hometown of Chinese Folk Art.” In 2004, the Shaanxi Provincial Agency for Cultural Affairs named it as “Hometown of Smoked Painting.”

Kite

Shaanxi is the birthplace of kites in China. It has a history of more than 2,000 years in making of kites. Kites made in local Shaanxi use human figures, animals, flowers and birds, objects for its patterns. They also use some characters of auspicious meanings, including proverbs, words of auspicious meanings, and myths as their themes. By means of techniques of expression including metonymy, analogy, pun, symbolization, and homophony and so on, they form a type of artistic form where “one auspicious sentence is coupled with a picture.”