【A traditional treasure that is about to be forgotten: embroidery】
Preface
Embroidery is a traditional handicraft art in the mainland, and it is also a part of the female red (also called women's affairs), which specifically refers to the needlework, weaving, embroidery, sewing and other work and finished products done by women.
According to the records in the "Book of Shang", as early as more than 4,000 years ago, the chapter uniform system stipulated that there was "clothing painting and embroidery". In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (relative to the Western Zhou Dynasty, referring to the period from 770 BC to 256 BC), officials have been set up to specialize in embroidery.
[The artistry and culture of embroidery are actually very high]
However, the most familiar embroidery is generally the "four famous embroidery", namely Suzhou embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Shu embroidery, and Guangdong embroidery.
In fact, there are countless types of embroidery in our ancient times, and because the transportation was very underdeveloped at that time, and the dissemination of information and skills was not convenient, so the embroidery in different places will have different techniques and arts, if it is exaggerated, that is, there will be 100 kinds of embroidery in 100 places.
Here is the Yellow River as the boundary, focusing on the four famous embroidery, the south and the north of the ten embroidery, still have a long history, beautiful, wonderful.
[In addition to subsidizing the family, embroidery used to be a token of affection]
First, Lu embroidery
——A collection of embroidery art in Shandong
Shandong ancient called Lu, Lu embroidery is the representative embroidery art of Shandong, and probably we formed the earliest, the longest history of embroidery, in the Spring and Autumn Period of Qilu has risen, at that time Lu embroidery in the history books are called "Qi Xuan" or "Lu Xuan", to Qin and prosperous, to the Han has been quite popular.
【Contemporary Lu Embroidery】
In the "Historical Records: The Biography of the Goods and Colonies", the embroidery of the Lu State at that time was recorded as "the world of crowns and belts", and there were also "service officials" specially set up for the embroidery industry. There is also evidence in the "Book of Han", "Qi three officials work thousands of people, and the annual fee is tens of thousands", which shows that the embroidery industry in Shandong was prosperous at that time.
【Contemporary Lu Embroidery】
What needs to be emphasized here is that Lu embroidery is a collective term, which is a collection of art (crafts) such as clothing embroidery, embroidery, velvet embroidery, Feixian hand embroidery, Penglai Bo embroidery, and linen velvet embroidery from all over Shandong. In May 2021, Lu embroidery was approved to be included in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
【Contemporary Lu Embroidery】
Second, Long embroidery
——The perfect fusion of three-dimensional and flat
Long embroidery, specifically refers to the sachet embroidery in Qingyang, Gansu Province.
Sachet in ancient times also called sachet, purse, etc., Qingyang local commonly known as "sloppy", "sloppy", "play live", etc., the history is too long, such as the "Yellow Emperor Neijing" author Qi Bo once brought a medicine bag to prevent the epidemic and drive away the plague, ban snake venom, and create the "fumigation method", because Qi Bo was born in Qingyang, so it has gradually become a custom in Qingyang, and it has been passed down continuously.
【Current Qingyang sachet】
Qingyang will embroider a variety of patterns on silk cloth with colored threads according to the pattern of paper-cutting, and then sew it into different shapes, and fill the inner core with silk cotton and spices, so as to make a small and exquisite, delicate and beautiful embroidery.
【Current Qingyang sachet】
Invisibly, Qingyang sachet has created a three-dimensional shape and plane embroidery compatible with pure handicraft products, but also divided into "sloppy" class, reel class, three-dimensional class, plane class several large types, Qingyang has been following the Dragon Boat Festival gift, wearing sachet to dispel evil and blessing traditional habits.
Therefore, Longxiu is Qingyang sachet embroidery, which is not only the folk traditional art of Gansu Province, but also in May 2006, it was approved to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
【Current Qingyang sachet】
3. Bian embroidery
——He was the same as Bianliang and Song culture
Bian, is the ancient name of Kaifeng City, Henan Province, also called Bianliang, Bianjing, etc., is the Beijing division of the Northern Song Dynasty, so Bianxiu is also called "Song embroidery".
This traditional embroidery art, which was popular in Kaifeng and the surrounding areas, benefited from the prosperity of the embroidery industry in the Bianjing area during the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, so it was soon able to reach a high level of skill.
【Bian embroidery now】
In the late Northern Song Dynasty, in the notebook essay "Tokyo Menghualu", there is a wonderful description of Bianxiu, such as describing Bianxiu as "golden and splendid". But with the shame of Jingkang and the subsequent southern crossing of clothes, Bianxiu, like Bianliang, became sluggish, even if some Bianxiu artists were displaced to the south, they did not create brilliance.
【Bian embroidery now】
Until the 80s of the 20th century, several generations of embroidery artists have worked hard to discover and sort out the embroidery skills of the Song Dynasty, and learn from the advantages of other embroidery species such as Suzhou embroidery and Hunan embroidery, and finally summed up 36 kinds of embroidery needles, so that the embroidery process is becoming more and more perfect and mature.
Bian embroidery focuses on three traditional themes: flowers, birds, insects, fish, birds and animals, and famous paintings. It can achieve vivid and expressive image, rigorous stitching, exquisite and delicate skills, and simple and elegant colors, so in June 2008, Bian embroidery was approved to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
【Bian embroidery now】
Fourth, Han embroidery
——The reputation of "jade bead quilt, rotten Qi light".
The "Han" in "Han embroidery" actually has two meanings: this embroidery process originated in the Han Dynasty; The birthplace is in what is now Wuhan and the surrounding areas.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Han embroidery carries the Chu culture of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the history of Han embroidery can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period, when the silk weaving industry of Chu was quite developed, and the manufacturing level has reached the level of competition among other vassal states. Jian A brushed the wall, and Luo tent was opened. Compile the ancestors and make the knot yellow. Fei Fei emerald tent, decorated with high halls.
【Contemporary Han Embroidery】
Later, the embroidery in the middle of the Warring States period unearthed in Jiangling No. 2 was very similar to the modern Han embroidery needle method - this shows that the continuity of the Han embroidery craft inheritance has not been interrupted, and it has also been recorded in the "Hubei Folklore": During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Chu went to the officials and prostitutes, and there were many people who liked to use Han embroidery as clothes.
Nowadays, Han embroidery is still popular in Wuhan, Jingmen, Shashi, Honghu and other areas in Hubei Province, but it is difficult to reproduce the grand occasion of "countless embroidery shops, hundreds of thousands of embroidery craftsmen, embroidery and embroidery in every household" in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China.
【Contemporary Han Embroidery】
In June 2008, Han embroidery was included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. In November 2011, Hubei Province's "First Chu Feng Han Shao Embroidery Exhibition" and the tour exhibition were held in Wuhan, not only showing the Han embroidery clothing made with ancient Han embroidery techniques, but also the use of Han embroidery elements of wedding cheongsam, gown skirts and evening dresses, etc., very wonderful.
【Contemporary Han Embroidery】
Fifth, Gu embroidery
——Seiko is ingenious and cannot be compared
Gu embroidery, originated from the Shanghai area during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty - called Shanghai County in the Ming Dynasty, under the jurisdiction of Songjiang Mansion in the south of Zhili, also called Gu embroidery of Luxiangyuan, that is because there are several owners of Gu embroidery:
- The owner of Luxiang Garden, Gu Mingshi's concubine Miao, she is good at embroidering figures and Buddha statues.
- Gu's daughter-in-law, Han, is good at imitating Song and Yuan Dynasty paintings, with fine silk splitting and vivid embroidery.
【The Inheritance of Gu Embroidery】
Although low-key, but the embroidery is still famous, Gu embroidery immediately got the "Seiko ingenuity, peers can not look at their back, people are extremely ingenious, the mistake is strange", because Gu embroidery's embroidery is mostly family female red, so it is also called "Han Yuan embroidery", the specifications are very high, mostly used for family collection or gifts, rarely sold.
【The Inheritance of Gu Embroidery】
In the Qing Dynasty, Gu Mingshi's great-granddaughter Gu Lanyu began to set up an embroidery workshop, recruited disciples, and taught Gu embroidery techniques. Since then, Gu embroidery has spread in the vicinity of Shanghai, folk women have scrambled to imitate, merchants have opened embroidery villages, purchased embroidery products, and the name of Gu embroidery has spread all over the south of the Yangtze River. But in the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, Gu embroidery gradually declined and was almost lost.
In May 2006, Gu Xiu was approved to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
【The Inheritance of Gu Embroidery】
Sixth, Ningbo embroidery
——Lasting and new, to a higher level
Ningbo embroidery is Ningbo embroidery - Ningbo ancient name Yong (in fact, now often use this abbreviation), Ningbo embroidery flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with a unique local style:
- (1) The composition is summarized and the color is bright, mostly using soft colors such as black, gray, stone blue, sauce red, and yellow color.
- (2) Pay attention to different stitching methods such as oblique needle, buckle needle, fat needle, drawing, morning yarn, silk clamping, hair drying needle, and beating needle.
- (3) The ingredients also have characteristics, and they are mostly decorated with gold and silver thread embroidery.
- (4) The embroidery patterns are mostly taken from the auspicious things that the folk like to see.
【One of the representative works of Ningbo embroidery】
Especially in the Qing Dynasty, Ningbo has formed a common phenomenon of "weaving mats and embroidery", and there are many well-known folk embroidery artists, and the sales of embroidery products are also increasing day by day - we also know that Ningbo is one of the first places to trade.
According to the records of "Qinxian Tongzhi", in 1932, the export sales of Ningbo embroidery exceeded 15,000 pieces, which were exported to some countries such as Southeast Asia. And now, Ningbo embroidery is still developing, local artists in the inheritance of traditional craftsmanship at the same time, but also continue to improve embroidery methods, such as in 1989, Ningbo embroidery large screen "Hundred Cranes Chaoyang" won the National Arts and Crafts Hundred Flowers Award Treasure Award, was collected by the National Art Museum of China.
【One of the representative works of Ningbo embroidery】
Seventh, Ou embroidery
——Needlework and affection, full of poetry, calligraphy and painting
Ou, is the ancient name of Wenzhou, Ou embroidery is the embroidery art originated in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, originated from the late Tang Dynasty Wenzhou folk women's embroidery room practice, rose in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, with the continuous development of Wenzhou's foreign traffic and trade, Ou embroidery tends to mature in skills, and even formed its own unique temperament.
【Contemporary Ou Embroidery】
During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty (the name of Daoguang was used from February 1821 to February 1850), Ou embroidery has formed the tradition of "eleven twelve niang combing hair, twelve thirteen niang teaching embroidery", and also embroidered Luo skirt as a love gift between young men and women. At that time, many embroidery shops were opened in Wenzhou, and the business was very prosperous to undertake embroidery work such as official clothes, brocade costumes, costumes, and cheongsam.
【Contemporary Ou Embroidery】
Ou embroidery has three main characteristics: concise composition, gorgeous color, and bright embroidery surface.
Now Ou embroidery, in color embroidery, plain embroidery, antique embroidery, simulation embroidery, ink embroidery, double-sided embroidery and other aspects are still superb, in June 2008, Ou embroidery was approved to be included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
【Contemporary Ou Embroidery】
Eighth, Min embroidery
——Jin Cangxiu is one of the leaders
Min embroidery, is the traditional handicraft art of Fujian since ancient times, it has bold colors, bright themes, gorgeous effects, pay attention to a kind of momentum, compared with other embroidery more atmospheric, can set off the gorgeous, lively strong visual effect.
Similar to Lu embroidery, Minxiang is also a general term for all kinds of embroidery art in Fujian, including the traditional Jincang embroidery thread in Quanzhou, Fujian, that is, on the bottom of the grosgrain, cotton and other materials are used as fillers, and various wonderful patterns are embroidered with embroidery thread wrapped in gold leaf.
【Min embroidery now】
Because the shape of the embroidery thread wrapped with gold leaf is like an onion, it is called golden onion embroidery locally in Quanzhou, and the "green onion" in the local dialect of Quanzhou is the same as "cang", so it is further refined into golden cangxiu.
With the same can embroider the relief effect of the golden cang, there was once the Tang Dynasty's gold embroidery (also called the cluster gold embroidery), but the process of the gold embroidery has long been lost, only Famen Temple unearthed a set of gold embroidery, a total of five, that is, the crimson Luo Di gold embroidery robe, worship mat, 襽 [lán, with the shirt, a kind of clothing connected to the upper and lower clothes in the Tang Dynasty], half arms, case skirt.
Only the golden embroidery can be passed down to this day, so it is very precious.
【Min embroidery now】
9. Linen embroidery
——Originated from the Spring and Autumn Period and inherited to the present
There is not more than one kind of hemp embroidery in the history of the country, and here we will focus on Badu hemp embroidery. Badu belongs to the Chun'an region of Zhejiang, where it is the mountainous area of western Zhejiang, the peaks stretch, forming hundreds of dock sources (can also be simply understood as small villages), several dock sources form a small area, so Chun'an has a total of three eight capitals, namely the upper eight capitals, the middle eight capitals, and the lower eight capitals.
【Badu hemp embroidery】
Badu hemp embroidery originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when it was generally called Shanyue by the Central Plains, and of course it was indeed closed to traffic and almost isolated from the outside world. Therefore, in order to survive, the local people planted their own hemp thread and woven linen, and later in order to be beautiful and increase the thickness, the women here embroidered various patterns on the linen aprons, bibs, rice bags, and straps.
As the contact with the outside world gradually increased (the focus was on the unification of the Six Kingdoms by Qin), the locals took out their own hemp embroidery and sold it, so it was called "Shanyue hemp embroidery".
【Badu hemp embroidery】
In fact, the production steps of Badu hemp embroidery are very particular, such as first peeling and removing chips from the linen and twisting it into spinning; It is then boiled and bleached with plant ash, and woven into cloth with a wooden loom—linen is divided into two colors: natural and cyan dyed with indigo.
Then by the ingenious girl to the cloth eyelet as a needle step, according to the white cloth blue line or green cloth white line color matching, on the linen cloth to draw dragons and phoenixes, drawing and painting, most of them are good at using the "ten" word stitch method, the natural flowers, birds, beasts cleverly combined, embroidered vivid image, pleasing linen embroidery.
【Badu hemp embroidery】
There are many peculiarities of Badu hemp embroidery, one of which is that the twine starts from the middle when picking flowers, and finally returns to the middle to collect the needle, a needle goes to the end, and the twine used is not knotted.
Moreover, the content of Badu hemp embroidery is based on longevity, jubilee and Lu, and the external use of a double-layer square frame or around the perimeter, and the outer periphery of the box is decorated with peaches (meaning longevity), pomegranate (meaning many sons), bamboo (meaning peace), magpie (meaning good news) and so on. In 2007, Badu hemp embroidery was selected into the list of representative items of intangible cultural heritage in Zhejiang Province.
【The continuous inheritance of Badu hemp embroidery】
10. Miao embroidery
——The technique of building the fence first and then planting flowers
Many of our ethnic minorities also have many exquisite and meticulous embroidery crafts and works, and here we will focus on the Miao embroidery that circulates in Guizhou.
Miao embroidery, with Huaxi Miao embroidery is the oldest and exquisite, Huaxi is now Guiyang City, Guizhou Province Huaxi District and the surrounding areas. At that time, the ancestor of the Miao people, the Jiuli tribe, originally lived in the Yellow River Valley, but gradually moved westward because of many defeats in wars with foreign tribes, and some of the branches entered the territory of present-day Guizhou, and a branch called itself "Mou" (other tribes called "Huamiao") settled in Geluogesang (that is, in today's Guiyang City).
【Guizhou Huaxi Miao Embroidery】
This Miao branch is the source of Huaxi Miao embroidery, they mostly use cross-stitch as the basic stitch, count the yarn and embroider, do not use the draft, and pick the special technique of the front side - that is, the flower picking process, so that the whole piece of flower picking works appears more beautiful and exquisite.
There is a historical fact and a custom here, because the Miao people have no writing, the Huaxi Miao people pick flowers and become the carrier of the history and legend of the Huaxi Miao people; At the same time, the unique flower picking through the first uniform has also become an identification mark and an important symbol of the Huaxi Miao people.
【Guizhou Huaxi Miao Embroidery】
In order to avoid staining the embroidery surface in the long-term production process, the front side is covered with cloth or paper and embroidered from the back. After completion, the covering is removed and exposed, which is the technical characteristics of "picking on the reverse side and looking at the front" of picking embroidery.
【Guizhou Huaxi Miao Embroidery】
Miao embroidery is a number of sensational representative works, such as "Miao women dress", "Miao Gu", "Lu Sheng" and so on, in 2006 5 Miao embroidery (Huaxi Miao embroidery) was approved to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
The only thing that needs to be paid attention to is that with the development and change of society, although Miao embroidery (Huaxi Miao embroidery) is cherished by collectors, artists and museums all over the world, but due to the consumption of manpower and the small market demand, the skills are slowly lost, and there must be no "successor" dilemma.
【Guizhou Huaxi Miao Embroidery】
epilogue
Although embroidery is beautiful, why are there not many famous masterpieces?
That's because no matter how beautiful the embroidery is, it is very difficult to preserve. Take the Qing Dynasty embroidery that is not too far away from now, for example, despite the careful collection and special custody, most of the embroidery still over time, the color falls off, changes color or decays, there are more fragments, and there are only a handful of embroidery masterpieces that have been preserved, such as the Qing Dynasty embroidery is relatively well preserved, the Gansu folk collection "Fu Lu Shou", about 260 cm long and 110 cm wide, basically intact, bright colors, fine embroidery, and lifelike characters.
[Embroidery, although it has a long history, still needs to be inherited]
If you go any further, not only will there be fewer heirlooms, but they will only be excavated from tombs – but that also depends on luck.
For example, embroidery in the Han Dynasty, archaeological departments around the country have excavated a lot of ancient tombs of the Han Dynasty, but the discovery of embroidery is very rare, fortunately in 1972 in Changsha, Hunan Mawangdui unearthed a wide variety of relatively complete embroidery, which is regarded as making up for the embroidery history and objects of the Han Dynasty.
【Restore the pattern of Mawangdui embroidery】
At present, the earliest surviving embroidery is the two embroideries of the Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC) unearthed in the Chu tomb in Changsha, Hunan.
【Restore the embroidery pattern of Changsha Chu tomb】