Silk is known as "an inch of silk and an inch of gold" and "the saint of weaving". The newly aired TV series "The Housewife" brings such a special skill to the public eye. At present, the audience in Shanghai has the opportunity to enjoy the style of contemporary silk in the West Second Hall of the Shanghai Exhibition Center, which is the "Fan Yuming Silk Art Exhibition".
Fan Yuming is a master of arts and crafts in Suzhou and a representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage. This time, he brought nearly fifty masterpieces of silk calligraphy and painting to Shanghai for the first time. For more than 20 years, a wisp of Danqing has been painted in a shuttle between the vertical and horizontal lines, and these exhibits show the color of silk weaving and the rhyme of ink literati from different angles and themes.
Silk, with raw silk as the warp, colored cooked silk as the weft, using the technique of "through the warp and weft", the pattern is first hooked to the surface of the warp line with ink, the weft wire does not penetrate the whole width, but according to the pattern, color of the block, and then block by block with a number of small shuttles to dig out the plain weave fabric.
In the Tang Dynasty, silk fabrics were first seen, and they were mainly decorated with narrow strips of daily practicality. By the Song Dynasty, the silk reeling process and the art of calligraphy and painting were skillfully combined, gradually transitioning from practical to purely appreciated works of art, and entering a climax. Because of his special love for silk painting, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty set up a special institution "Kesi Zuo" in the Wensi Academy of the Northern Song Dynasty Court. As a court craft, the practicality and artistry of the Ming and Qing dynasties went hand in hand, and the practical silk was mainly enjoyed by the court and the nobility; the artistic silk theme was more extensive, the output increased, and gradually formed a production and marketing center with Suzhou as the leader.
As the handicraft of "World Intangible Cultural Heritage" and "Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage", silk reeling is not only the ultimate representative of silk weaving art, but also the essence of Chinese civilization that carries thousands of years, with the "National Treasure" variety show, the first silk weaving and embroidery exhibition of Shangbo and the dissemination of silk in film and television drama works, the non-genetic inheritors of silk represented by Mr. Wang Jinshan and his students are gradually understood by everyone, and Fan Yuming is also one of the leaders.
At the exhibition site, talking about the experience of making silk in the past 20 years, from learning the art of Wang Jinshan when he was young, reproducing the academic depth of museum-level silk fabrics such as Dingling, to the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts to study fiber art and explore innovative thinking, Fan Yuming believes that this is a slow but fulfilling process. For the future, he has only one vision: how to truly pass on the ancient skill of silk in his hands.
At the relevant seminars held at the same time as the opening of the exhibition, many experts and scholars also discussed the present and future of silk.
As a representative of domestic silk collection and academic research, Gao Chunming, president of the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Association, talked about the relationship with silk for more than 30 years, and his memories of the collection of silk, the memories of recreating the dragon robe of the Forbidden City in the early years with Wang Jinshan, and the series of silk qipao cooperated with contemporary artist Chen Jialing are all admirable. He felt that "the strength of the country is the foundation of true national self-confidence, and as a cultural scholar, there is a possibility of more in-depth and professional discussion." ”
Xiao Yeying, who was the director of the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Conservation Center and the director of the Shanghai Municipal Museum of People's Art, also has experience in the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage projects, she said: "Integration and innovation will become the core themes of the vitality of intangible cultural heritage in the future. ”
Artist Li Lei put forward three suggestions for the development of silk reeling skills, among which what resonated with the experts present was that it was necessary to integrate contemporary aesthetics and design into traditional elements, increase its functionality, so that more people can use the niche element of silk, create a unique "sense of ceremony" that belongs to the Chinese, and let the intangible cultural heritage have young vitality while retaining the cultural heritage.
As a leading representative of Chinese book design, Yuan Yinchang spent nearly three years designing the book "Splendid Embroidery Articles - Traditional Chinese Embroidery Patterns". He pays special attention to the beauty of design, and said: "I have always loved silk. How to integrate the element of silk with the art wall breaking in the future to form a new work is a direction that I find very interesting. How to do subtraction with traditional exquisite skills without losing beauty is a new topic when we do design. ”
Author: Fan Xin
The works are all silk works in this exhibition
Editor: Zhou Minxian
Editor-in-Charge: Liu Qing
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.