Suzhou Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
Yangzhou embroidery originated in the Han dynasty, flourished in the Tang, achieved refinement in the Song, and reached its height in the Ming and Qing dynasties; it is an important school of Su embroidery, transmitted in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Embroidery is a traditional fine-art form in which an embroiderer passes a needle threaded with silk through a particular fabric, building up patterns and color by hand. Yangzhou embroidery has formed its own distinctive style through its mastery of ink-wash freehand embroidery. Embroiderers mostly take famous artists' calligraphy and paintings as their models, fusing the principles of painting with those of embroidery and flexibly deploying a wide range of stitch techniques, so that every work expresses the elegant charm of brush and ink, reaching a state where “embroidery and painting are hard to tell apart.” Moreover, on the basis of understanding the intent of the painting, Yangzhou embroidery fully expresses the texture and qualities of beauty in both its stitches and its silk thread, highlighting the distinctive character of the art of embroidery and giving its works a charm unlike that of painting — “not like painting, yet surpassing painting.” Yangzhou embroidery includes many process steps such as designing the embroidery draft, stretching the fabric on the frame and matching threads, embroidering, and mounting the finished piece. The embroidery designer selects the model, studies the painting, draws a draft suited to the characteristics of embroidery, and guides the embroiderers in understanding the work. The stitches used in embroidery are highly varied, with several dozen types including the satin stitch, the long-and-short stitch, the spiral stitch, the joining stitch, the rolling stitch, and the roaming stitch. The choice of stitches is exacting: where the needle enters and leaves the fabric must be “even, uniform, aligned, and dense”; the arrangement of lines must be well judged in density and spacing; layer is laid upon layer, and stitch is set into stitch; inlaid colors must be harmonious, and the direction of the silk threads natural. Yangzhou embroidery places special emphasis on the embroiderer's intuitive grasp, blending skill and insight — what is called “the thread of the heart and the needle of the spirit.” It pursues the eight qualities “refinement, elegance, harmony, smoothness, evenness, liveliness, translucence, and cleanliness”: finely split silk threads and meticulous stitching are “refinement”; famous models and elegantly clear compositions are “elegance”; harmonious colors with well-judged light and dark are “harmony”; silk threads lying smoothly with natural turns are “smoothness”; even layers with balanced density are “evenness”; flexible technique and lively stitching are “liveliness”; the combination of void and solid with airy clarity is “translucence”; and a clean, smooth embroidered surface that lies flat like a painting is “cleanliness.” Together these form the distinctive style of the Yangzhou school of embroidery. Drawing on the Yangzhou School of painting, Yangzhou embroidery fuses traditional craft with traditional fine art, manifesting a profound and refined regional cultural spirit, and provides a basis for studying the composition and development of Yangzhou culture.
Archival Records of Process Steps
Yangzhou embroidery includes many process steps such as designing the embroidery draft, stretching the fabric on the frame and matching threads, embroidering, and mounting the finished piece.
Ink-and-wash freehand embroidery
Yangzhou embroidery excels at freehand ink-and-wash subjects, using celebrated paintings as drafts and merging painting theory with stitch theory until 'stitch and painting cannot be told apart'.
Dozens of stitches: even, scattered, rotating
Its stitches number in the dozens, including even, scattered-inlay, rotating, joining, rolling and wandering stitches, chosen so that lines are even, dense and interlocked.
The eight criteria of the Yangzhou school
The eight criteria are fineness, elegance, harmony, smoothness, evenness, liveliness, translucency and cleanliness of the embroidered surface.
Designing the draft and mounting the frame
The process runs from designing the draft and mounting the frame with matched threads to stitching and mounting; the designer selects and reads the painting for the embroiderer.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yangzhou embroidery is mainly transmitted in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and its subordinate counties and cities, with the embroidery shops and workshops of the Guangling and Hanjiang areas serving as the centers of transmission; embroiderers mostly work from drafts of the Yangzhou School of painting.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Suzhou Embroidery · Suzhou Embroidery · Suzhou Embroidery · Suzhou Embroidery.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yangzhou embroidery is transmitted mainly through family inheritance and master-apprentice instruction. At present master-apprentice transmission predominates: a corps of professional embroidery talent led by veteran artists sustains the living transmission, and young people are recruited to expand the reserve of future inheritors. Many works of Yangzhou freehand embroidery are of lofty style and profound conception, much loved by the public, with high artistic and collectible value. Yangzhou embroidery works of different periods reflect the aesthetic concepts, value orientations, folk customs, and regional culture of their particular times, and possess historical and cultural value that cannot be overlooked. Wu Xiaoping (from the official archive of associated inheritors): female, Han ethnicity, born in November 1953, a native of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Senior arts-and-crafts artist (a senior professional title). She has carried forward and developed poetic double-sided embroidery of landscape subjects and ink-wash freehand embroidery of natural charm. She combined the meticulous application of stitches in Yangzhou embroidery with the brushwork of Chinese painting, reproducing the charm of the original work's brush and ink. On the basis of understanding the intent of the painting, she fully expressed the texture and qualities of beauty in both stitches and silk threads. Her works feature finely split threads, meticulous stitching, rich colors, and a neat, clean finish; the artistic images are fresh, delicate, refined, and lifelike. Representative inheritor of Su embroidery (Yangzhou embroidery), a project of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. Representative works such as “The Plank Road,” “Willow Pond and Flower Garden,” “High Autumn on Mount Hua,” and “Travelers on a Journey” have won gold and silver awards at the national and provincial levels. For more than forty years of artistic practice she has devoted herself to the transmission and innovation of Yangzhou embroidery, training many apprentices.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Eying 01-0078
- Gu Wenxia 01-0079
- Yao Jianping 03-1238
- Zhao Hongyu 03-1239
- Jin Leilei 03-1240
- Yu Fuzhen 04-1764
- Zhang Yuying 04-1765
- Jiang Xueying 04-1766
- Yao Huifen 04-1767
- Zhang Meifang 04-1768
- Wu Xiaoping 05-2596
- Sun Yanyun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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