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Su embroidery is a beautiful background color in the life of the people of Jiangnan, and the softness of the water and soil of Jiangnan gives it a unique poetic character. Elegant and timeless, exquisite and ethereal, exquisite craftsmanship, Su embroidery condenses the essence of Wudi's artistic aesthetics, full of the ingenuity and wisdom of Su embroidery artists, and embroiders a needle and a thread to flow out of the time. On September 26, 2021, the "Craftsmanship" series special exhibition "Embroidery Jiangnan - Haunting Silk Thread Silk Hua Nian" Su Embroidery Exhibition opened at Suzhou Wu Culture Museum, with 28 pieces of fine Su embroidery, showing the unique historical value and artistic value of Su embroidery craftsmanship.
Originating from the wuxian area, Su embroidery has a history of more than 2,000 years, and is one of the national intangible cultural heritages, with a unique style of beautiful patterns, ingenious conception, meticulous embroidery, lively stitching and elegant colors. For a long time, Su embroidery has occupied an important position in the economic and cultural life of Wudi with beautiful patterns, exquisite ideas, meticulous embroidery and a variety of stitching methods. Today, as a rare arts and crafts that has been handed down to this day and is still highly active, Su embroidery provides an excellent entry point for observing the social and cultural changes in Wudi, while successive Generations of Su embroidery masters have been constantly exploring and innovating in practice, exploring more diversified development with exquisite skills and breakthrough thinking.
Showroom scene
Exhibition hall scene, thin flat embroidered kimono belt
On September 26th, the "Craftsmanship" series special exhibition "Embroidery Jiangnan - Haunting Silk Thread Silk Silk Hua Nian" Su Embroidery Exhibition opened in Suzhou Wu Culture Museum. The surging news learned that the exhibition relies on the Su embroidery works of Jiang Xueying, Fu Xianghong, and Fu Hanlu's three generations of masters and apprentices, and a total of 28 su embroidery works are exhibited, explaining the unique historical and artistic value of Su embroidery to the audience.
Jiang Xueying, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award of Chinese Arts and Crafts, representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project "Su Embroidery", master of Chinese arts and crafts, master of handicraft industry in the Asia-Pacific region, engaged in embroidery art for more than 60 years; Fu Xianghong, representative inheritor of the "Su Embroidery" intangible cultural heritage project in Suzhou, senior arts and crafts artist, founder of Xianghong Embroidery House, ambassador of Supai Qipao in Jiangsu Province, and Fu Hanlu, the second generation inheritor of Xianghong Embroidery House, director of Suzhou Centennial Vocational College, Vice President of Wuzhong District Young Craftsmen Association.
On the exhibition hall site, pull-out carved kimono belt
Wu Culture Museum carries out the "Craftsmanship" series of exhibitions through the exhibition form of the "Wu Song" exhibition hall, using the works of wudi's outstanding craftsmen to dig deeply and present the connotation and characteristics of intangible cultural heritage, and strives to provide the audience with an exhibition with depth and can pursue the cultural connotation itself. This is also the second special exhibition of the "Craftsmanship" series of wu culture museum after the nuclear sculpture exhibition.
The silk in Su embroidery is skillful
The embroidery process was originally mainly used for clothing, the Tang Dynasty began to develop in the direction of art appreciation, the two Song Dynasties divided into two directions of daily use and appreciation, and the Ming Dynasty introduced the essence of literati painting into it. Wang Jun proposed in his "Gu Su Zhi": "Delicate and elegant, called Suzhou embroidery. For the first time, the artistic style of Su embroidery was condensed. The Qing Dynasty was the heyday of Su embroidery, and Suzhou was known all over the world for its "embroidery city", which was applied to all aspects of life, art and religion. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the emergence of imitation embroidery, random needle embroidery and other embroidery methods have further developed Su embroidery, and famous hands compete for shows and lead the way, ranking first among the four famous embroideries in China.
In the exhibition hall, Fu Xianghong's work "Flower Shadow Female Robe", with the Qing Dynasty shape of the cardigan gown as the carrier, integrated into the local culture and contemporary aesthetic design concepts, in the cloud shoulders, sleeves, plackets and clothes edges, etc., embroidered with different postures of beauty and children, in the courtyard or playing, or sitting, or reading, and finally into a Combination of Dynamic and Static Su-style "life" three-dimensional picture.
Flower Shadow Female Robe
Deer crane with spring fan set
The fan sleeve is a bag bag for folding fans, embroidered with various delicate patterns between the slender square inches, which are extremely gorgeous and fine, and are quite favored by literati and scholars in the Ming and Qing dynasties. This fan sleeve is embroidered with fine flat embroidery and gold needle method. "Deer crane with spring" harmonic sound "six contract spring", taking the meaning of spring in the world, all things thriving.
Autumn leaf birds
The work is embroidered with Zhou Tianmin's paintings as embroidery, which belongs to the painting and embroidery, with an orderly layout, concise composition and bright colors, showing the unique charm of traditional Su embroidery works that have lasted for a long time.
In terms of technology, Su embroidery pays attention to the treatment of details, the embroidery thread is not connected to the stitch, the arrangement of silk is changed according to the form of the object, and a variety of color thread sets are commonly used to embroider the color effect of blending freely. At the same time, it is good at leaving blank space when expressing objects, so that it is layered and the pattern is contoured. Therefore, people often summarize the characteristics of Su embroidery in eight words: "flat, light, qi, uniform, and harmonious, smooth, fine, and dense". In the exhibition hall, Fu Xianghong's work "All Things Born Qipao" uses a variety of stitches such as fine flat embroidery, pipe embroidery, nasha embroidery, virtual reality, and roller needles, and the objects are delicately described and the garden scenery is vivid.
All things are born in the cheongsam
All Things Born Cheongsam (Partial)
The work "All Things Born qipao" is inspired by the folk festivals and customs paintings in the Qing Dynasty's "December Moon Order". February of the lunar calendar, Erya Shi tian: "February is like this." According to Hao Yixing's righteousness, "If you are, follow the righteousness, all things come out with you, as they are." "The qipao is made of plain crepe satin, and the stitching method adopts fine flat embroidery, pipe embroidery, nano-yarn embroidery, virtual reality, roller needle, etc., and the objects are delicately described, and the garden scenery is vivid. There are plum blossoms blooming, rockeries, poets walking, children laughing, a scene of revival and vitality
Spring dock saffron
The work depicts the grand scene of the sunset in the Taihu Gorge dock and the return of fishing boats after a bumper harvest. The technique is mainly scattered needles, virtual needles, and the use of sprinkling needles, tearing needles, fine needles, etc., and using more than 90 kinds of silk threads of different colors, and the fine part of a silk thread is divided into 1/48 for embroidery, so that the picture is layered and quite interesting.
Still life simulation embroidery
Created by Shen Shou, a famous embroiderer in the late Qing Dynasty, imitation embroidery is characterized by the combination of the light and shadow effects of Western oil paintings with the ancient art of embroidery. The work uses rotary needle embroidery with traditional stitches such as fine flat embroidery and random needle embroidery, so that the pattern is turned naturally, and the texture of fruits and flowers is portrayed vividly. The embroidery surface is delicate and flat, the brilliance is soft, and it is very three-dimensional.
Su embroidery's exploration in the field of art
In modern times, time has changed, and Su embroidery has declined several times, but it can keep up with the pace of the times and show its tenacity and indomitability with haunting silk threads. In the 1970s, exquisite and intricate embroidered kimonos, hanboks and high-end daily necessities were exported overseas, which made Su embroidery an international reputation. At the same time, appreciative embroidery ornaments such as random needle embroidery and heterochromatic double-sided embroidery are active in the daily life of the people. At present, while Su embroidery technology continues to explore in the field of high-end artworks, it pays more and more attention to the return of practical functions. The new generation of Su embroidery artists focus on creating a "living" Su embroidery art, finding a point of convergence between "original ecology" and "marketization", and promoting Su embroidery to achieve a higher level of transformation.
In the exhibition hall, the work "XiaoMa" is one of Jiang Xueying's representative works, using the technique of combining virtual and real embroidery, the horse in front is mainly loose and tearing needles, and the horses running in the rear and the ground are mainly virtual and real needles, and the picture has both three-dimensional sense and hazy sense.
Xiao Ma
Thin flat embroidered kimono belt
In the 1970s, Sino-Japanese relations warmed up. Because of the elegance and exquisite craftsmanship of the Su embroidery pattern, the Su embroidered kimono belt began to become popular among the upper class in Japan, and the demand increased greatly for a time, and the price was several times that of the ordinary kimono belt, sometimes up to millions of yen. This work was embroidered in the 1980s and is embroidered in fine flats, with full color, exquisite elegance.
A pint of cranes
This official supplement is a crane pattern used by Yipin officials, symbolizing "Yipin Gaosheng", which was originally an embroidered piece of costume ordered by Korean merchants in the 1990s. In 1997, the financial crisis swept through Asia, enterprises collapsed, workers lost their jobs, the social economy was depressed, and the embroidered pieces that had been embroidered had nowhere to be sold, and then preserved as a witness of the times.
It is reported that during the exhibition, the Wu Culture Museum will carry out a wealth of social education activities such as academic lectures and courses supporting the exhibition, leading the audience to feel the unique historical value and artistic charm of Su embroidery craftsmanship, so that Su embroidery art, craftsmanship spirit and intangible cultural heritage can be better inherited.
The exhibition will be on view until November 28, 2021.
(This article is synthesized from the textual information provided by the Wu Culture Museum)
Editor-in-Charge: Lu Linhan
Proofreader: Ding Xiao