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In 2009, a work of arts and crafts "Oba President Ma Family Celebration" was presented as a national gift to then-US President Barack Obama, and at first glance, many people thought that it was a realistic painting with exquisite paintings, and felt that such a "national ceremony" seemed to be a little careless.
But when you look closely, you can find that this work is actually composed of countless needles and threads! The traditional Chinese embroidery process can create such a vivid picture, which makes the foreign guests present call out to the eyes, and the visiting Oba President Ma is also very happy to accept this unusual gift.
"Oba President Ma Family Fun"
This work that amazed the foreign guests used the imitation embroidery technology of Su embroidery in the traditional Chinese embroidery technology, which combined the light and shadow color performance of Western art on the basis of traditional embroidery, and the embroidered picture was exquisite and the authenticity was extremely high.
The works produced by this skill have been given to foreign guests as a state gift many times, and there is also a little-known story.
In 2011, the imitation embroidery work "Portrait of the Belgian King and His Wife" was presented as a national gift to the Belgian king and his wife who visited China. A few years later, the king's son succeeded to the throne, and when the prince was a prince, he loved this Chinese embroidery work for ten minutes, and the new king came to ask our country's imitation embroiderers to make another work for him.
As a result, the work "The Family Of the King of Belgium" came into being, and the story of the cross-generational king's transnational quest was also passed down as a good story in the industry. It can be seen that the status of imitation embroidery in Western countries is very high.
Two state gifts to the two kings of Belgium
In recent years, various exquisite works of Su embroidery have received more and more attention, and the most concerned in Su embroidery works should be that this imitation embroidery technique that is frequently given away as a national gift and collected by major museums is also used.
There are many modern imitation embroidery masters, and with the advancement of technology, simulation embroidery works are showing an increasingly delicate trend. But if you want to choose a person who has the most important influence on this skill, then Shen Shou, the embroidered saint of the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, is definitely the best candidate.
Shen Shou, the "embroidery saint" of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty
Shen Shou, who is known as China's "embroidery saint" with her outstanding skills, not only researched simulated embroidery, cultivated a large number of embroidery talents, but also was the first embroidery master to promote Chinese embroidery works to the world and became famous at home and abroad. Therefore, imitation embroidery is also known as "Shen embroidery".
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the famous industrialist Zhang Xiao listened to her oral accounts and personally wrote records and sorted out China's first monograph that systematically summarized the theory and techniques of embroidery - "Snow Eunuch Embroidery Notation". Zhang Xiao's infatuation with her, who was already a married woman at that time, has become a touching past in the Republic of China period.
Modern Shen embroidery work "Portrait of Zhang Xiao"
Shen Shou' original name was Shen Yunzhi, and he was born in a wealthy family in Wu County, Jiangsu Province, at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Her father was an antique dealer, so Shen Yunzhi received an excellent education and artistic influence from an early age.
In ancient times, suzhou embroidery, she grew up in such an environment, at the age of eight she learned embroidery with her sister, at the age of twelve, the talented she took out her father's treasured Paintings of Tang Bohu, Wen Zhengming and other famous artists as a blueprint for embroidery, and she was able to use embroidery needles to depict the paintings beautifully.
Shen embroidery works: Tang Yin's "Autumn Wind Fan Diagram"
At the age of sixteen or seventeen, Shen Yunzhi was already a well-known embroidery master in Suzhou. A few years later, she met her husband Yu Jue, who came from a family of scholars, and Yu Jue, who had a good achievement in calligraphy and painting, painted and embroidered with her, and the two complemented each other. Shen Yunzhi's embroidery based on Chinese paintings is naturally a little more elegant and bookish than the flowers and plants embroidered by others, which is very outstanding.
On the seventieth birthday of Cixi in 1904, the local governments had to send the birthday gifts that could most please Lafayette. And Suzhou's birthday gifts are naturally indispensable to Shen Yunzhi's outstanding embroidery. Shen Yunzhi embroidered the "Eight Immortals on the Shou Tu" and the "Infinite Shou Buddha Map" two Shou Ping into the offering, Cixi was overjoyed to see this exquisite skill, and immediately gave Shen Yunzhi a "Shou" character, and ordered her and his wife to enter Beijing to open the Qing Embroidery Engineering Department to teach the embroidery art to the palace.
Since then, Shen Yunzhi has changed his name to Shen Shou. In the palace, she also encountered a fortunate event that changed the height of her life's artistic attainment.
Shen Shou's embroidery with Chinese paintings as a blueprint is enough to confuse the real with the fake
In November 1905, Shen Shou and his wife were assigned by the Qing government to visit Japan. At that time, Japan was already influenced by Western culture, and during the period in Japan, the light and shadow color performance of Western painting and the realistic effect of Japanese art embroidery gave Shen Shou, who had been educated in traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting, a huge impact and inspiration.
After returning to China, she dyed her own embroidery thread, improved it, and innovated many traditional embroidery stitches. After years of failures, she finally created the "simulation embroidery" method, also known as "Shen embroidery".
Her original Shen embroidery, the improved silk thread color is more rich and gorgeous than the traditional Su embroidery; and the use of virtual needle method to hide the stitches, resulting in light and shade changes, so that the embroidery has a sense of light, texture and three-dimensional sense; in the shaping of the head of the character, she created a spin stitch method used to express the texture, making the character more realistic and vivid.
Shen Xiu's first imitation embroidery work, "Portrait of Alina the Queen of Italy", was sent to Italy to participate in the 1911 International Manufacturing Craft Competition, and won the "World Supreme Honor and Highest Excellence Award", which was the first time that China's embroidery art sensationalized the world. After the Qing government gave this work to Italy, the queen who loved it specially gave Shen Shou a special medal and a diamond gold watch.
Shen Shou's "Portrait of The Queen of Italy Alina"
However, the good times did not last long, and after the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing government fell, and the Qing embroidery engineering department was suspended. Shen Shou and his wife are facing the situation of unemployment, and their lives were once difficult to sustain. At this time, Zhang Xiao, who advocated the prosperity of industry at that time, opened a women's work camp in Nantong, and he threw an olive branch to Shen Shou and his wife, who valued Shen Shou and her outstanding skills.
Shen Shou thus settled in Nantong and taught embroidery skills. During these years, she taught rigorously and cultivated a large number of embroidery talents for Nantong. These people also became famous embroidery artists of Later Su Embroidery and Shen Embroidery, so that Shen Embroidery has been continuously developed and passed down from generation to generation in the land of Nantong.
It was also during this period that Shen Shou embroidered a pinnacle that shocked the world. At the "Panama Pacific International Exposition" held in San Francisco in 1915, Shen Shou's new work "Jesus Statue" once again stunned foreigners on the other side of the ocean.
Shen Shou embroidery "Statue of Jesus"
This work uses more than 110 colors of silk threads to express subtle color distinctions, and uses needles such as spinning needles, virtual needles, and needles to express the natural texture of Jesus' face and hair, so that the work has the thickness and three-dimensional sense of Western painting.
After reading it, foreign artists evaluated this work: it is not an oil portrait but has the perspective and convexity of oil painting, and the delicate and unique mysterious texture of embroidery works cannot be expressed by oil painting. As a result, The Statue of Jesus also won the first prize at that World Expo. Shen Xiu's name, like Shen Shou, is also famous all over the world and is well-known overseas.
Shen Shou embroidery "Lady Becker Statue"
The statue of Jesus and the work "Snow Eunuch Embroidery" were completed by Shen Shou on the sickbed, and she unfortunately overworked herself day and night in the training hall for the inheritance of her skills.
And when she was young, she complemented her husband and made common progress, due to infertility, she could only accept her husband's concubine, a poor generation of beautiful people, and when she was seriously ill, she was accompanied only by Zhang Xiao, who was twenty years older than her and cherished her talent.
Legend has it that Zhang Xiao also had a long-term relationship with each other, and wrote many love poems and did a lot of things to try to impress Shen Shou. However, Shen Shou, who was born in the show, has always been unable to overcome the rules of traditional etiquette, and she understands Zhang Xiao's painstaking heart, but she refuses his kindness again and again to avoid suspicion.
Years later, this "love history" has been continuously turned over, and the world's attention to gossip seems to have far overshadowed their contributions to Chinese industry and traditional craftsmanship.
The wind and dust of the times are scattered in the long river of history, and the inexplicable things will eventually pass away. Fortunately, what they left behind was this piece of exquisite embroidery that described the glory of that time, as well as this "Snow Eunuch Embroidery Recipe" that condensed Shen Shou's life's work, and this Su embroidery technique that is now flourishing and developing.
Modern Shen embroidery works
Source:
Cultural Sky documentary series: "The Statue of Jesus" Shen Shou embroidery
Encyclopedia of Great Culture Series Documentary: "Shen Shou"