Hanxiu
01 · Historical Records
Han embroidery began in the Han dynasty, flourished in the Tang dynasty, and reached its height in the Qing dynasty, and in transmission it descends directly from Chu embroidery. As the land of ancient Chu, the Wuhan region’s particular geographic environment provided cultural soil for the development of Han embroidery: the Jianghan Plain is crisscrossed by waterways and plied by boats, and women often embroidered at the bows of boats or beside their looms. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, the brocades woven in the silk-producing Jingxiang region and used in court embroidery work were shipped in large quantities through Hankou, and embroiderers and embroidery patterns likewise gathered and were distributed there, so that the town acquired a structure in which the embroidery industry was concentrated.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Han embroidery is a traditional embroidery art popular in the Jingsha, Wuhan, and Honghu areas of Hubei Province. According to historical records, it began in the Han dynasty, flourished in the Tang dynasty, and reached its height in the Qing dynasty. As the land of ancient Chu, the Wuhan region’s particular geographic environment provided cultural soil for the development of Han embroidery. Xiuhuadi (Embroidered Flower Embankment) around Xiulin Town in Shishou City and Fengkou Town in Honghu City, and Xiuhua Street (Embroidered Flower Street) in Hankou all took their names from the concentration of embroidery there. Building on Chu embroidery and drawing together the strengths of northern and southern stitching methods, Han embroidery gradually formed an embroidery art system whose principal stitch techniques are pu (spreading), ya (pressing), zhi (weaving), suo (locking), kou (fastening), pan (coiling), and tao (casing), and whose principal mode of expression is pingjin jiaxiu, flat gold embroidery interwoven with other stitches. Han embroidery emphasizes that “a flower has no fixed form; liveliness comes first.” It generally begins stitching from the outer edges and works inward layer by layer until the entire embroidered surface is filled. According to the different textures and patterns of the embroidered piece, the stitcher must flexibly apply various stitch techniques, needle with decisiveness, pay attention to the neatness of pattern edges — the so-called “even stitch” — and attend to the layering and three-dimensionality produced by color-graded shading. Han embroidery is bold in conception, rich and intense in color, full in composition, and strongly decorative; everywhere it reveals lingering traces of Chu style, occupying a place of its own in China’s embroidery garden and shining brilliantly.
The seven principal stitches
Laying, pressing, weaving, locking, clasp, coiling and looping, with flat-gold appliqué, laid decisively and edged cleanly to build relief.
The leaping stitch
Huang Shenghui folded the Hunan blending stitch into Han embroidery and invented the leaping stitch, giving dragons and fish a shimmering relief.
No single fruit, merriment first
Bold in design and rich in colour, its principle is merriment before botanical accuracy, worked from the edge inward until the ground is covered.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Han embroidery is popular in the Jingsha, Wuhan, and Honghu areas of Hubei Province. Where the embroidery industry was concentrated, many streets and towns took their names from embroidery, such as Xiuhuadi around Xiulin Town in Shishou City and Fengkou Town in Honghu City, and Xiuhua Street in Hankou; Xiulin in Shishou is itself named after embroidery. Han embroidery takes pu (spreading), ya (pressing), zhi (weaving), suo (locking), kou (fastening), pan (coiling), and tao (casing) as its principal stitch techniques, with pingjin jiaxiu as its principal mode of expression, and emphasizes that “a flower has no fixed form; liveliness comes first,” generally beginning from the outer edges and working inward layer by layer until the whole embroidered surface is filled.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Huang Shenghui (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): female, of the Han nationality, born in October 1936, a native of Changsha County, Hunan Province. She was born into an embroidery family and studied embroidery from childhood under her mother’s instruction. After graduating from middle school she went to work at the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Factory. She incorporated the blended-stitch technique in which she was skilled into Han embroidery, and in the early 1970s created a new stitch — the “bounce stitch” — capable of rendering raised and recessed textures, so that the dragons and fish she embroidered take on a visual effect of glittering golden light and seem alive. She has long devoted herself to the revival and development of Han embroidery, training more than three hundred people including staff of the Wuhan Folk Art Theatrical Embroidery Factory and workers at outsourced embroidery stations. She has actively taken part in the various Han embroidery training programs run by universities, associations, and communities, and has actively explored models for transmitting folk art through cooperation between the community and institutions of higher learning. She is a representative inheritor of Han embroidery, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the fifth national-level batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Huang Shenghui 05-2685
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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