Embroidery is to use embroidery needles to thread colored threads, and embroider the needles on the embroidery materials according to the pre-designed patterns and colors to embroider the patterns. Changes in embroidery stitches form different needlework styles and techniques. Chinese embroidery craftsmanship has reached a high level during the Qin and Han Dynasties, and embroidery and silk were the main commodities transported on the Silk Road. The most prominent Chinese embroideries include Su embroidery in Jiangsu, Hunan embroidery in Hunan, Yue embroidery in Guangdong and Shu embroidery in Sichuan, and are known as the "Four Famous Embroideries".
Suzhou embroidery
The colorful and gorgeous Suzhou embroidery is hailed as a pearl in the treasure house of Chinese art.
The Qing Dynasty was the heyday of Su embroidery. It can be said that the schools multiplied and famous craftsmen competed. A large number of embroideries enjoyed by the royal family were almost all made by Suzhou embroidery artists. Folk embroidery is even more colorful and widely used in clothing, theater clothes, quilt covers, pillow bags, curtains, cushions, shoe uppers, sachets, fan bags, etc. These Su embroidery daily necessities not only have diverse stitching techniques, fine embroidery work, and elegant colors, but also the patterns and patterns contain the meaning of celebration, longevity, and auspiciousness, and are deeply loved by the masses. There is also a kind of "painting embroidery", which is a high-end appreciation item and is called "boudoir embroidery". Historical records include Qian Hui and Cao Moqin from Wu County, Yang Maojun and Shen Guanguan from Wujiang, and Ding Pei and Xue Wenhua from Wuxi. They are all famous for their embroidery masterpieces. Especially at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, as Western learning flowed eastward, Su embroidery also showed signs of innovation. During the Guangxu period, Shen Yunzhi, a skilled embroidery artist, was famous in the embroidery circles of Suzhou. She incorporated the simulated characteristics of Western paintings into embroidery and created "simulated embroidery". On the 70th birthday of Cixi in the 30th year of Guangxu (AD 1904), Shen Yunyi embroidered eight works including Buddha statues to celebrate her birthday. Cixi expressed great appreciation and wrote the words "Shou" and "Fu" and gave them to Shen Yunzhi and her husband Yu Jue. From then on, Shen Yunzhi changed her name to Shen Shou. Later, her work "Portrait of Queen Alina of Italy" was given to Shen Yunzhi as a national gift. Italy, which caused a sensation in both the government and the public; "The Statue of Jesus" won the first prize at the "Panama-Pacific International Painting Exhibition" held in the United States in 1915, and sold for up to 13,000 US dollars. When "Like" was exhibited in the United States, Shen Shou's "imitation embroidery" became famous both at home and abroad, opening up a new page for Su embroidery in Suzhou, Nantong, Danyang, Wuxi, Changshu and other places in Jiangsu. She held embroidery training institutes, embroidery engineering courses, and embroidery trade unions. She went to Suzhou, Beijing, Tianjin, Nantong and other places to teach apprentices, and trained a generation of new artists including Hua Ji, Tang Yizhen, and Li Peiwei. , Cai Qunxiu, Zhang Yingxiu, Jin Jingfen... Their works have been exhibited at the "Dulan International Exposition in Italy" (1911 AD), the "Panama-Pacific International Exposition" (1915 AD), and the "Belgian International Exposition" (1930 AD). The award won international honors for the traditional crafts of the Chinese nation. In the early 1930s, Yang Shouyu, director of the Embroidery Engineering Department of Danyang Zhengze Women's Vocational School, created the "random stitch embroidery" with criss-crossing, different lengths and overlapping layers. It has improved the expressive ability of Su embroidery art.
Since the early 1950s, Su embroidery artists have opened up a new and vast world in Suzhou, Nantong, Changzhou, Wuxi, Yangzhou, Dongtai and Hangzhou in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Embroidery research institutions or factories have been established in other places, allowing embroidery artists to focus on research and creation. They have excavated, summarized, improved, and developed the lost skills, making the ancient Su embroidery art shine again.
Hunan embroidery
Hunan embroidery originated from folk embroidery and has a history of more than 2,000 years. The earliest found object is a dragon wind picture unearthed from the Chu Tomb in Changsha in 1972. 40 pieces of embroidered clothing and a velvet brocade were unearthed. There are more than 10 kinds of embroidery patterns, 18 colors of embroidery threads, and a variety of stitches, achieving neat stitches, free and easy lines, and skilled embroidery skills. By the Qing Dynasty, Changsha embroidery spread throughout urban and rural areas. According to the "Changsha County Chronicles" written by Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty, "in the provincial capital area, there were many women doing embroidery and few weaving, and the rich and powerful people probably paid tribute to each other with brocade." "Shaping, Changsha County, and Xianning, Kaifu District, are the traditional bases for Hunan embroidery production. Most farm women are engaged in embroidery, and were once known as the "Embroidery Township."
There are many embroidery shops in the city, 26 by the end of the Qing Dynasty, with more than 10,000 embroidery workers and an annual output of more than 20,000 pieces of embroidery. The embroidery products are mainly daily necessities such as quilt covers and pillowcases, and there are also a small number of high-end painted screens.
Shu Embroidery
At first, Shu embroidery was mainly popular among the people. After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, it gradually formed an industry, especially the Shu embroidery in Jiulong Lane and Kejia Lane in Chengdu is famous. At that time, the "Work Encouragement Bureau" run by the county government also had an embroidery department, which shows the wide scope of its production. The main products produced at that time were official uniforms, gifts, daily floral clothes, border flowers, dowries, colorful tents and striped screens.
Shu embroidery uses soft satin and colored silk as its main raw materials. Its embroidery techniques are very unique. There are at least 100 kinds of exquisite stitch embroidery techniques, such as colorful brocade patterns on clothes, embroidery and painting integrated Line embroidery, delicate double-sided embroidery and halo stitches, yarn stitches, dot stitches, covering stitches, etc. are all very unique and exquisite techniques. Today's embroidery products include both large-format banners and small pocket-sized pieces; there are both high-end appreciation products and ordinary daily consumer goods. For example, the huge "Hibiscus Carp" screen in the Sichuan Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the famous Sichuan embroidery "Sichuan Palace Musicians Performing Pictures" hanging screen, the double-sided "Water Plant Carp" screen in different colors, and the "Big and Little Panda" screen are A representative work of Shu embroidery.
The "Dongyang Guozhi" of the Eastern Jin Dynasty called Shu embroidery and Shu brocade the treasures of Shu. During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, many embroidery shops developed in Chengdu. The embroidery is made from locally woven red and green satin and important real estate loose threads. The threads used are neat and thick, and the colors are elegant. The stitching method is "neat stitches, bright threads, tight and soft, and twisted to perfection" ("turning" means starting the needle from the center and expanding to all sides; "twisting" means the long and short needles are from the outside to the inside. Add or subtract stitches). There are trocar needles, halo needles, oblique rolling needles, family flow needles, ginseng needles, shed ginseng needles, knitting needles, etc. Products include mirror curtains, lace, wedding dresses, scrolls, shoes and hats, skirts, pillowcases, quilt covers, curtains, etc. The theme has many auspicious meanings and has folk color. Shu embroidery ranks among China's four famous embroideries for its skillful craftsmanship and delicate lines. Shu embroidery with natural themes (such as pandas, flowers and birds) is even more admirable. There are single-sided and double-sided embroidery. Purely hand-made embroidery ensures realistic pictures, changeable shapes and exquisite patterns.
Shu embroidery originated from the folk in western Sichuan. Due to the influence of geographical environment, customs, culture and art, etc., after a long period of continuous development, it has gradually formed a rigorous and delicate, bright and smooth composition, a clear composition, a rich and round shape. , unique style with bright colors.
The technical characteristics of Shu embroidery include smooth and bright threads, neat stitches, rigorous needle application, soft color mixing, free twisting, vivid strength, and decent reality. Every piece of Shu embroidery vividly demonstrates these unique skills. Skills, according to statistics, there are 12 categories and 122 kinds of stitches in Shu embroidery. Commonly used acupuncture techniques include halo acupuncture, spreading acupuncture, rolling acupuncture, cutting acupuncture, mixed acupuncture, sand acupuncture, covering acupuncture, etc. Shu embroidery often uses halo stitches to express the texture of the embroidered objects, reflect the light, color and shape of the embroidered objects, and make the embroidered objects lifelike. For example, the agility of carps, the agility of golden monkeys, the beauty of characters, the magnificence of mountains and rivers, the variety of flowers and birds, the naivety of pandas, etc., all express different textures such as light, clean, thick, thin, soft, hard, loose, and loose.
Shu embroidery has flexible embroidery methods and strong adaptability. Generally, embroidery products use silk, satin, silk, yarn, and crepe as fabrics, and the production procedures, color matching, and thread usage vary according to the needs of the embroidery.
Guangdong Embroidery
Guangdong Embroidery is the general name for Guangdong embroidery art. It includes two major schools: "Guang Embroidery" centered in Guangzhou and "Chao Embroidery" represented by Chaozhou. Embroidery has a long history in Puyuan. It has exquisite skills, strong decorative composition, rich and bright colors, smooth and bright embroidered velvet, clear texture, free and easy velvet strips, strong three-dimensional effect of gold and silver pad velvet, skilled embroidery workers, magnificent embroidery and other unique features. The style and artistic characteristics have become an integral part of the Chinese national culture. We can also describe the exquisite skills of Guangxiu embroidery from the "Du Yang Zapian" written by Su E: "In the first year of Yongzhen, Nanhai Gongqi Girl Meiniang was fourteen years old. She was extremely skilled in craftsmanship and could sew a foot of silk. Seven volumes of the Lotus Sutra are embroidered on it. The characters are no larger than a grain of millet and the dots are clearly defined, as fine as a hair. There are no missing chapters or sentences in the inscriptions.
He is even better at making flying immortals. He divides the cover into three strands with a hook of silk, dyes it in five colors, and forms a golden cover with jade weight. Among them are ten continents and three islands, heavenly beings and jade girls, the statue of linfeng in the platform hall, and a boy holding a banner and holding a festival. It is no less than a thousand, and its cover is one foot wide. It is said that there are no three liang fried incense stands, and it is durable and continuous. Emperor Shunzong of the Tang Dynasty praised her work and called her the Goddess...".
During the Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms period, because Guangzhou was a border area and was not affected by the war, embroidery, like agriculture and handicrafts, developed rapidly. From the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, the skills of Cantonese embroidery were further improved. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, embroidery shops were established in Guangzhou, and embroidery shops and embroidery workshops were also established in Guangzhou and Chaozhou. Cantonese embroidery showed a prosperous scene. After liberation, driven by the Double Hundred Policy, masterpieces by famous artists continued to emerge.
With the prosperity of Cantonese embroidery, there are more and more varieties of Cantonese embroidery, with a wide range of applications, among which high-end embroidery is the main one. There are banners, hanging screens, table screens, etc. General embroidery covers all aspects of daily necessities, such as embroidered pictures, gold and silver velvet hanging skirts, quilt covers, pillowcases, bed lintels, cushions, scarves, headscarves, various embroidery Clothes, embroidered shoes, embroidered bags, drama costumes, tent gussets, stage curtains, etc. There are also some ornamental embroidery works, such as "Morning Light", "Birds Paying Attention to the Phoenix", "Kowloon Screen", "Blowing Xiao and Inducing the Phoenix" and other masterpieces. The themes of Guangdong embroidery are also relatively wide, including figures, animals, flowers and birds, dragons and phoenixes, landscapes and rivers, utensils and various patterns. Among them, birds facing the phoenix, dragons and phoenixes, and Bogu are the most traditional themes.
Guangdong embroidery includes two major schools: "Guangzhou embroidery" and "Chao embroidery", so the stitching methods of "Guangdong embroidery" are also different depending on the schools. There are more than 30 kinds of stitches in "Guangdong embroidery", including 7 categories. Straight twist needle, binding needle, continuous needle, auxiliary needle, knitted embroidery, Rao embroidery, variant embroidery, etc., as well as the six categories of Guangzhou nail embroidery, including flat embroidery, brocade embroidery, Rao embroidery, convex embroidery, and appliqué embroidery. There are more than 10 kinds of stitching methods in "Tide Embroidery", including more than 60 gold stitching methods such as two-needle dragon-lin turning stitch, rotating stitch, bridge stitching, concave stitching, and cushion embroidery, as well as more than 40 kinds of velvet embroidery stitching. At the same time, artists also used various techniques such as folding embroidery, insert embroidery, gold and silver outline, and brown silk outline to make "tide embroidery" more perfect in techniques such as "embroidery, nailing, padding, pasting, patchwork, and embellishment." In addition to using rich and changeable stitching methods to produce the artistic effects of "flat, floating, sudden and lively", Cantonese embroidery also pays attention to ideas in creative design, and is good at integrating auspiciousness and good wishes into embroidery creations. The method is based on life but values ??tradition. He is not satisfied with realistic depictions but pursues better ideals. At the same time, he is also good at drawing on the strengths of various art forms such as painting and folk paper-cutting to make embroidery The composition is full, complex but not chaotic, the stitches are even, smooth and smooth, the texture is clear and distinct, the objects and images are both vivid and lifelike, fully reflecting the local style and artistic characteristics of Cantonese embroidery.