Guangdong Embroidery

01 · Historical Records

The Tang-dynasty work Du Yang Za Bian by Su E already records the Nanhai maiden Lu Meiniang, "whose skill was beyond compare and who could embroider seven scrolls of the Lotus Sutra on a single foot of plain silk". Yue embroidery has a long history in Guangdong; Chao embroidery appeared in the Chaozhou area of Guangdong as early as the Tang dynasty, and by the Ming dynasty had formed its own style.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Yue embroidery is a folk embroidery craft circulated in Guangzhou and its former dependencies of Nanhai, Panyu and Shunde, with a history of more than one thousand years. Yue embroidery technique pays attention to the form and quality of the materials it works with, and comprises four major categories: true-silk velvet embroidery, gold-and-silver-thread embroidery, thread embroidery and bead embroidery. True-silk velvet embroidery uses silk as its material and has strong expressive power; it is the oldest variety of Yue embroidery and the one whose technique has been most fully transmitted. The stitches of gold-and-silver-thread embroidery are distinctive, with more than sixty of them in seven broad groups, including flat embroidery, woven embroidery, wrapped embroidery, raised embroidery, padded embroidery, appliqué embroidery and brocade weaving. Bead embroidery is a new variety of Yue embroidery, developed and applied by Yue embroidery artisans only in the last few decades. Its subjects are dragons and phoenixes, flowers and plants, birds, beasts, aquatic creatures and human figures; finished pieces mostly serve as everyday articles, sacrificial offerings, objects for appreciation and decorations for opera costumes. Its embroidery methods fall into five types: embroidering, padding, appliqué, piecing and stitching. There are more than two hundred stitches, including hexagonal triple-layer satin-stitch brocade, padded-cotton gold-thread stitch, double-ding scale stitch and padded chrysanthemum scale stitch. Many works combine different embroidery methods and stitches and introduce innovations; for example, the representative Chao embroidery work Nine-Dragon Screen uses five major embroidery methods, among which the nail-gold padded-relief stitch unique to Chao embroidery makes the image of the dragons lifelike. Yue embroidery is a craft with a style of its own: its stitches are varied, its stitch lengths are even, and it can skillfully use the direction of the threads to express the texture of the objects depicted. Yue embroidery has a wide range of subjects and rich colors; it attends to the harmonious use of light and shadow, and at the same time puts craftsmanship at the service of art, attaching great importance to the artistic effect of the finished piece. Yue embroidery embodies the talent and wisdom of generations of artisans; from its artistic style to its creative thinking it is full of Lingnan character, and its course of growth closely overlaps the trajectory of Lingnan culture. Huang Hong, Xu Liancheng, Yu De, Huang Mei and Chen Heying are all influential Yue embroidery inheritors. Today, with the passing of senior artisans, some unique Yue embroidery skills have gradually been lost. Chen Shaofang, the only master of arts and crafts in Yue embroidery, is also nearly seventy years old; Yue embroidery urgently needs young inheritors. In an age of continuous socioeconomic development and rapid scientific and technological progress, Yue embroidery, which relies on manual skill for its outstanding results, has suffered severe competition from machine embroidery and computer embroidery. Its market is shrinking and its survival is difficult, so it urgently needs support and protection.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Guang embroidery circulated in Guangzhou and its former dependencies of Nanhai, Panyu and Shunde. Zhuangyuanfang within the city of Guangzhou was once crowded with embroidery shops, while in the surrounding countryside village embroiderers were most numerous in Shunde and Nanhai. After the opening of Macao as a port, Guang embroidery spread overseas through trade and embroidery workshops, forming an embroidery industry network with Guangzhou as its distribution center.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Guangdong Embroidery · Guangdong Embroidery.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Chen Shaofang (record in the official file of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in 1937, from Panyu, Guangdong. Representative inheritor of Yue Embroidery (Guang Embroidery), a first-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project; master of Chinese arts and crafts. In order to preserve the craft, she spent ten years on a cleverly conceived long-scroll composition in the traditional theme of a hundred birds and a hundred flowers, in which she preserved the greater part of the stitches and techniques of Guang embroidery; it has become a physical summation and demonstration of the technique. She also created a distinctive "method of color composition with embroidery silk" by combining the principles of color composition in Chinese and Western painting, and developed the expressive method of "modern art portrait embroidery". At present, Chen Shaofang is working on writing a book on the new Guang embroidery techniques she has mastered in recent years so that they can circulate widely. Chen Shaofang has trained a great number of technical personnel; her two sons and daughters-in-law have inherited Guang embroidery technique quite comprehensively. Her representative works include The Shepherdess, Morning Light and Lingnan Splendor. Chen Shaofang graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1962. She once compiled the book Guang Embroidery as a textbook for training young students, thereby breaking with the traditional model that relied entirely on oral transmission from master to apprentice. Xu Chiguang (record in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1937, from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. His stitches are distinctive and his technique consummate; he has developed a style of his own. His works pursue the artistic effects of luster, brightness, flatness, density, clarity and evenness; viewed from afar they have the charm of painting, while viewed close up the excellence of the embroidery is especially apparent. As one of the few male embroiderers in the field, he has on the one hand actively participated in collating the traditional stitches of Guang embroidery, leaving invaluable first-hand research material, and on the other hand carefully improved and innovated more than ten stitches and methods of expression. Representative inheritor of Yue Embroidery (Guang Embroidery), a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. More than ten of his works have won gold prizes at the national and provincial levels and are collected by many museums and art galleries. He is also committed to training successors, selflessly passing on the embroidery technique handed down in his family to his students; he has trained a group of Guang embroidery practitioners, many of whom have become leaders in the field.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Chen Shaofang 01-0081
• Lin Zhicheng 01-0082
• Kang Huifang 04-1771
• Sun Qingxian 04-1772
• Xu Chiguang 05-2597
• Li Shuying
• Huang Weixiong
• Wu Jieyi

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Guangdong Embroidery (Guangzhou, Guangdong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Chen Shaofang · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Xu Chiguang · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗