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Silhouette in Eastern Route shadow play of Shaanxi in late-Nubg Dynasty

Shadow play is a popular folk opera belonging in the category of puppy show in which performers use leather or cardboard silhouettes to enact plays. A light is shone onto a screen, behind which performers operate the silhouettes while singing to the company of music. It is a form of art unique to China where folk arts and crafts are ingeniously combined with theatrical performance.

Silhouettes are similar to paper-cuts, but differ in that the hands and legs are joined with string so that they are movable. The silhouette figures were cut from cardboard ar first and from donkey hide or ox-hide, sheep-hide, etc. later on. Usually a piece of hide is cut, colored, ironed and joined into a figure with nimble limbs. The tools used in making silhouette figures are rather particular about, which include five categories: knives, blades, files, drills, and prods, for shaping the head, trunk, legs hands and feet respectively.

The silhouette figures, vivid in shape and rich in color, are projected onto a screen. In a performance, the operator, while singing to the accompaniment of music, manipulates the figures as the story of the play

Qing Dynasty shadow play – Prince White Dragon

requires. To adapt to the form of screen expression, the skill of combining abstractness and reality is applied in shadow play in which scenes are made artistic, exaggerate and dramatic. Aside from screen presentation, silhouette figures can be played on window sills as ornaments. They can be appreciated or kept as collectables.

Shadow play can be traced back to the Western Han Dynasty. Legend has it that in the region of Emperor Wen (203-157 B.C.), a court lady who was playing with the crown prince in front of the window, had human figures cut from Chinese parasol leaves, which she managed to reflect on the gauze windows for fun. That is the origin of shadow play. Actually shadow play in China started from the Northern Song Dynasty and gradually prospered. According to dream of the Eastern Capital written by Meng Yuanlao in Song Dynasty, in the capital city of Lin’an (now Hangzhou), a shadow play troupe named “Painted-Leather Society” was established. In the third year of Zhengde under the reign of Emperor Renzong in the Ming Dynasty, a hundred-drama festival was held in Beijing in which performances were also given by shadow play operators. In the Qing Dynasty, shadow play further developed and became popular, with more items on the program to choose from, more varieties of figures, and more meticulous in the carving skills. During the reign of Emperor Jiaqing (1786-1820), the shadow play troupes also gave performances for home celebration on New Year Day and other festivals. At that time, quite a few Peking opera actors joined in the performance of shadow play. Since the mid-Qing Dynasty, types of facial makeup such as sheng (male role), dan (female role), jing (painted-face role), mo (elderly male role) and chou (role of clown) appeared in shadow play, as learned from Peking Opera.
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The miraculous puppet made by artisan Yanshi greatly surprised King Mu of Zhou Dynasty

In the Western Zhou Dynasty when King Mu was on the throne there was an artisan named Yanshi. The puppet he made bore strong resemblance to a living person. At first, King Mu thought the puppet was only Yanshi’s attendant. When Yanshi gave orders for him to advance, retreat, bend forward or backward, it responded with no difference from a being. When opening its jaws, it could drawl out a song; and when moving its arms, it could sway and move about as in a dance. When the performance came to an end, the puppet cast seductive eyes to King Mu’s concubine in high favor. King Mu flew into a great rage, firmly believing the puppet, dexterous and quick in action, must be a real being instead of a puppet and wanted to put Yanshi to death on the spot. Yanshi immediately disassembled the puppet to show that the puppet was made of no more than leather, wood, gum and lacquer, and black, white, red an blue pigments. King Mu hastened forward and examined carefully, finding the puppet had all visceral organs available while for the exterior, muscles and bones, joints, skin, hair, and teeth were also all available with nothing missing. However, they were all man-made things. When they were assembled together, it became a lving puppet again. King Mu gasped in admiration of Yanshi’s superb skill, very pleased and sincerely convinced.

Beijing Wang Mazi scissors shop of Qing Dynasty

In China, shop signs are of two major categories: one is signboard o which the name of the shop is given; the other is trade sign, giving the line of business. The sign board is usually in the shape of an oblong wooden board and the trade sign often gives the commodity to be sold or items or services by means of images.

Not until the Song Dynasty, shop signs were used chiefly in restaurants and teahouses, and then drugstores, draperies, pawnshops, medicated plaster shops, hotels, tobacconists, etc. started to have a piece of cloth hanging in front of the door showing trade signs. The masterpiece Pure Brightness Day on the River displays a prosperous and noisy scene of the streets in the capital, with rows and rows of stores carrying shop signs of various types clearly seen.

When it came to the Ming and Qing dynasties, shop signs became numerous in variety following the blooming of market-place commerce, which fall largely into four categories: image sign, written sign, material object sign and symbol sign.

The image sign refers to the models of the commodities sold in the shop. In a tobacconist, an enlarged tobacco leaf and a tobacco pouch were drawn on a piece of cloth or a wooden board; in a shoe store, a model of the sole of a shoe was hanging up.
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