People's Daily Shijiazhuang, February 4 (Zhou Bo) Silk plum blossom cold magpie map, silk green landscape map, national color peony map... In the Dingzhou Silk Exhibition Hall, the exquisite "picture scrolls" are vivid in patterns and colorful, but in fact, this is not a painting, but a silk work.
Dingzhou silk (weaving technology), national intangible cultural heritage. Silk, is the silk as raw material, the most traditional of the Chinese silk weaving industry to pick the warp and weft, highly appreciate the decorative silk fabric, is the essence of traditional Chinese art, often has "an inch of silk and an inch of gold" and "the saint of weaving" reputation. Founded in Dingzhou, it originated in the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and flourished in the Song Dynasty. The whole history of China records that "the Song Dynasty was the heyday of silk art in history, and it is most famous for its production in Dingzhou."
"The finished silk product can withstand touching, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing and washing, and is known as an artistic fabric that is not bad for thousands of years." Cheng Miaoxin, the provincial inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project, introduced that the silk reeling process is complicated and completely by hand, and the machine cannot replace it. The process of reeling silk alone has 16 processes such as falling warp line, warp lead, sleeve reed, bending knot, and embedded shaft warp. Moreover, the weaving techniques of silk are also varied, such as knots, whips, hooks, knots, zimu jing, phoenix tails and so on.
Cheng Miaoxin, the provincial inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project, made the tiger tiger raw Wei Silk. People's Daily Zhou Bo photo
Thousands of threads "depict" moving pictures
On the second floor of the Dingzhou Silk Reel exhibition hall, several silk reeling machines are neatly arranged. Several workers are patiently and meticulously "painting" moving pictures.
"The woven drawing manuscript is first traced on the warp line, and then the weft thread is silk-knitted." Cheng Miaoxin introduced that "through the warp and weft" is the biggest feature that distinguishes silk from other weaving techniques. The longitudinal warp thread runs through the entire width of the fabric, and when weaving, it is woven with small woven wefts, and the color is changed according to the pattern, and the multicolored silk thread is woven into a fabric with rich colors and complete color scales.
"The finished silk is only exposed and does not expose the warp, so the color of the silk product produced is thick and light, and the front and back sides are exactly the same." Cheng Miaoxin said that to complete a silk work, it is often necessary to transform tens of thousands of shuttles, after more than a dozen processes, it takes half a year in short, and two or three years in length, depending on the size of the frame and the complexity of the pattern.
"This is the 'Plum Blossom Cold Magpie Diagram', a replica of Shen Zifan's works in the Song Dynasty, the original version is stored in the Palace Museum in Beijing, which is one of the top ten 'treasures of the town hall'." In the boutique exhibition hall opposite the studio, Cheng Miaoxin introduced a number of exquisitely framed finished products in the museum.
Cheng Miaoxin, the provincial inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project, taught her daughter to make silk. People's Daily Zhou Bo photo
Technological innovation drives cultural heritage
"From a young age, I liked the art of silk reeling under the influence of my mother." Cheng Miaoxin's daughter Guo Fei said that although this kind of craft is time-consuming and laborious, it takes several or even ten hours to sit down, but it is a proud thing to be busy with "dialing back and forth" and using a pair of skillful hands to pass on the skills.
At present, there are 12 weavers in the silk transmission base, including Guo Fei, and their average age is in their thirties. "We recruit students in the society and teach everyone for free, in order to let more young people learn the art of silk reeling, add young and fashionable elements to the silk works, and achieve integration and innovation." Guo Fei said.
"We have developed some reeling cultural and creative products, such as reel earrings, reel bags, reel pendants, etc. In addition, we also have some personalized custom clothing, such as cheongsams and shirts containing silk elements. Guo Fei hopes to lower the threshold for appreciating silk and experiencing silk, so that this ancient luxury can approach young people and enter daily life.
Talking about the future development of silk, Guo Fei said that in the future, a silk art inheritance museum integrating inheritance, experience, education, training, tourism and other functions will be built, and the history, production, process flow and inheritance and development of silk will be introduced through the collection and exhibition of silk historical archives and national masters of silk. At the same time, regular study activities are held to attract outstanding practitioners from all over the country to come to exchange and discuss, making Dingzhou a veritable "hometown of silk art".