Hunan Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
In 1979 the provincial factory was reorganized into the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Research Institute, and in 1998 the Hunan Provincial People's Government allocated 7.8 million yuan to establish the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Museum. In 1986 the Changsha Shaping Xiang Embroidery Factory (privately run) was established, and in 2003 the Hunan Xingsha Xiang Embroidery City was built as a Sino-foreign joint venture.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The traditional production areas of Xiang embroidery are distributed mainly across several dozen townships in Changsha City and the Changsha County, Wangcheng County, and Kaifu District under its jurisdiction. After Liberation, on the basis of the existing embroidery shops, the state-run Red Star Xiang Embroidery Factory, the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Factory, the Changsha Xiang Embroidery General Factory (since restructured), the Changsha County Xiang Embroidery Factory (since gone bankrupt), and the Wangcheng County Xiang Embroidery Factory (since gone bankrupt) were established; at the height of their prosperity the workers employed numbered close to 100,000. For nearly a century Xiang embroidery has been widely regarded as one of the four famous embroideries of China. Large quantities of embroidery fragments unearthed in 1972 from Han Tomb No. 1 at Mawangdui, Changsha — such as the "dark-brown diamond-patterned Xinqi embroidery" and "longevity-pattern embroidery on yellow silk" — demonstrate that Hunan embroidery has a history of more than two thousand years. Xiang embroidery formed an embroidery system with a unique style in the late Qing dynasty. In the late Qing dynasty, the Xiang embroidery artist Li Yihui (1854-1928) pioneered the blended-stitch (chanzhen) technique; in 1898 Hu Lianxian opened the first Xiang embroidery shop, the "Wucaixia Embroidery Shop," at Simenkou in Changsha, and the blended-stitch technique was spread through her teaching of apprentices. The blended-stitch technique can render the depth of light and dark, the yin and yang, of images, the gradual shifts of tone, and the blending of colors; combined with the extremely fine technique of splitting silk threads, it fully expresses the spirit of literati painting. In the late Qing and early Republican period, the Xiang embroidery artist Liao Jiahui embroidered Portrait of Wu Peifu's Mother (now in the collection of the Shanghai Museum); at the "Feng'an Grand Ceremony," the coffin of Dr. Sun Yat-sen was covered with a Xiang-embroidered coffin cover (now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei); the Portrait of President Roosevelt embroidered in 1933 by the Jinhuali Embroidery Shop of Changsha (now in the collection of the Little White House Museum in Atlanta, USA) was exhibited at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, USA, causing a sensation and making Xiang embroidery famous abroad. By this period, Xiang embroidery technique had already reached a considerable level. After Liberation, the famous veteran Xiang embroidery artist Yu Zhenhui (1913-1984) invented and perfected the hair-stitch (maozhen) technique, making the lions and tigers depicted in Xiang embroidery lifelike; it is a famous stitch unique among the four famous embroideries of China. Through the transmission and development of several generations of artists, Xiang embroidery technique has now formed a complete system of 72 stitches in five major categories, laying a good foundation for the perfect rendering of literati painting and modern photographic works. Double-sided fully-different embroidery has brought the expressive forms and technical level of Xiang embroidery to astonishing heights; people in China praise it as a "super embroidery," while foreign friends call it "magic-like art." Since the policy of reform and opening up, the State Council has successively conferred the title of master of Chinese arts and crafts on five Xiang embroidery artists: Li Kaiyun, Yang Yingxiu, Huang Cuifeng, Liu Aiyun, and Zhou Jinxiu. Xiang embroidery works on subjects such as lions and tigers are now in the collection of the China National Arts and Crafts Museum and have become national treasures. Xiang embroidery artists have repeatedly been sent by the state to perform abroad, and large numbers of Xiang embroidery works have been presented as state gifts to international airports and to friends, spreading Chinese culture and enhancing international friendship. In 2005 a Xiang embroidery work (embroidered by the Changsha Shaping Xiang Embroidery Factory) was carried on China's Shenzhou-6 space journey. In October 2005, at the "Exhibition and Evaluation of China's Four Famous Embroideries" held in Mudu, Jiangsu, only the Xiang embroidery work Longevity Bird (embroidered by the Hunan Xingsha Xiang Embroidery City) won first prize. In November 2005, at the "Exhibition of Works and Fine Products of Masters of Chinese Arts and Crafts" held in Hangzhou by the China National Arts and Crafts Association, the Xiang embroidery work Portrait of Annam (embroidered by the Changsha Xiuhuayuan) won the sole gold prize for embroidery.
Blended stitch and Li Yihui
The late-Qing artisan Li Yihui created blended stitching to render light and shade and graded tones; combined with fine thread-splitting it conveyed literati painting, and was spread through Hu Lianxian's pupils.
Wucaixia workshop and the Xiang embroidery trade
In 1898 Hu Lianxian opened the first Xiang embroidery workshop, Wucaixia, at Simenkou; after 1949 state workshops were formed and employment peaked near 100,000.
Shaggy-hair stitch and Xiang lions and tigers
Yu Zhenhui perfected the shaggy-hair stitch, giving lifelike lions and tigers and a stitch unique among China's four famous embroideries; such pieces are national treasures in the China Craft Art Museum.
Fully different double-sided embroidery
Fully different double-sided embroidery lifts Xiang work to an astonishing level, praised at home as a super embroidery and abroad as magic art; the craft now has 72 stitches in five categories.
Mawangdui fragments and the roots of Xiang embroidery
The 1972 excavation of Mawangdui tomb no. 1 yielded many embroidery fragments, proving that Hunan embroidery has a history of more than two thousand years.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Xiang embroidery takes as its traditional production areas several dozen townships in Changsha and the Changsha County, Wangcheng County, and Kaifu District under its jurisdiction; among them, the Shaping area of Changsha County has been a village of embroiderers since the late Qing dynasty. The farm households of Wangcheng, Ningxiang, and other places also take part in embroidery as a household sideline, forming a production-and-marketing pattern centered on the embroidery shops of the Changsha city proper, with the embroiderers of the surrounding countryside as the periphery.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, due to the impact of foreign cultures, the rapid development of the market economy, and the transfer of large amounts of rural labor, traditional Xiang embroidery, which grew out of folk handicraft technique, suffers from a shortage of inheritors, and some excellent handicraft techniques are tending toward being lost. In order to protect and develop traditional Xiang embroidery technique, the Changsha Municipal People's Government is actively adopting effective and pragmatic measures and gradually increasing its protection efforts, so that the Xiang embroidery brand created by the people of Hunan over many centuries can be transmitted and developed. Liu Aiyun (recorded in the official archives of associated inheritors): Female; Han; born in 1938; a native of Changsha, Hunan. She is a representative inheritor of the first national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Xiang Embroidery and a master of Chinese arts and crafts. Liu Aiyun has been engaged in Xiang embroidery creation for more than fifty years; she excels at embroidering flowers and birds, animals, and figures, and is particularly adept at Xiang embroidery of lions and tigers. Her representative works include Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix, The Assembly of Immortals Celebrating Longevity, and White Tiger Head. She has also summarized her own experience, forming an accessible theory of technique, and trained a number of young embroiderers specializing in the "pengmao hair stitch" (pengmao zhen). Liu Jianxin (recorded in the official archives of associated inheritors): Female; Han; born in September 1951; a native of Changsha, Hunan. She is a master of Chinese arts and crafts. She is a direct disciple of Zhou Jinxiu. She specializes in embroidering figures, landscapes, flowers and birds, and animals; her embroidery is fine and her stitch technique lively, and she is particularly skilled at the pengmao hair stitch. Besides wielding the needle at embroidery, she can take up the brush and paint, and combines traditional Xiang embroidery with oil painting, gouache, and photographic works in her creations. She has established an embroidery art museum and carries out publicity and promotion activities. She has held solo exhibitions of Xiang embroidery and given embroidery demonstrations in various parts of the world, spreading traditional Chinese culture. She is a representative inheritor of the fourth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Xiang Embroidery. Her works have won the golden prize of the Mountain Flower Award for Chinese Folk Literature and Art, jointly sponsored by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China Folk Literature and Art Association, as well as provincial golden prizes. She has founded an art studio, established a transmission center, and trained a number of successors to Xiang embroidery.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Liu Aiyun 01-0080
- Liu Jianxin 04-1769
- Jiang Zaihong 04-1770
- Li Yan
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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