Manchu Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
Manchu embroidery has been transmitted among the Manchu people from ancient times to the present, enduring without decline. Its early forms developed in step with the Manchu transition from fishing and hunting to farming and a settled life of growing cotton and weaving cloth. Embroidery was passed down from generation to generation within the family, most often from mother to daughter and from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law. A girl's dowry chests and wedding garments before marriage were almost entirely sewn by her own hands, and needlework thus became an important measure of a woman's skill and of her family's upbringing.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Embroidery is the most distinctive traditional art of the Manchu people, transmitted among the Manchu folk from ancient times to the present, enduring without decline. Manchu embroidery is strongly practical: it is found everywhere on everyday articles and dress, and is most exquisite in pillow-end embroidery. Manchu embroidery absorbs the strong points of famous Han embroideries such as Su embroidery, Shu embroidery, and Guang embroidery, skillfully blending them with the aesthetic concepts and living customs of its own people to form its own character and charm, revealing the plain folkways of Manchu forebears and the clever hands and ingenious minds of the women of the Eight Banners. Manchu embroidery uses gauze or satin fabric as its principal material, with homespun cloth and blue-and-white cloth as supplements. In composition the works stress left-right symmetry — either answering each other in balance, or with the green dragon on the left and the white tiger on the right — or the cut-embroidery (gexiu) method is used to make the two sides exactly identical. Manchu embroidery has a great variety of designs, bringing into the frame birds and beasts, flowers and plants, fish and insects, and human figures and stories, all expressing the wish for good fortune. The composition of the embroidery carries on the traditional technical rules of Chinese art, peeling back layer after layer and alternating density with sparseness, achieving a state in which 'the sparse is open enough for a horse to gallop and the dense admits not a breath of wind', and displaying a very high artistic standard. Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery is popular in the area of Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County, Liaoning Province, and has a long history of nearly four hundred years to this day. Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery uses mainly satin, gauze, and coarse cloth; its products are for the most part everyday practical items, chiefly including embroidered garments, embroidered shoes, embroidered hats, purses, tobacco pouches, waist satchels, money pouches, capes, leg bindings, pillow ends, table covers, and bedspreads. Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery has distinctive techniques: it includes elaborate stitch methods such as tie embroidery (zhaxiu), satin embroidery, cut embroidery, appliqué embroidery, wrap embroidery, and woven embroidery, as well as a rich repertory of stitches such as long-and-short stitch, satin stitch (qiangzhen), random stitch, long stitch, lock stitch, flower stitch, tie stitch (zhazhen), and filling stitch. In embroidery practice these methods are often used in combination, like dragons and snakes in flight and as natural as drifting clouds and flowing water, bound by no single convention; the embroidered pieces thus take on stylistic features that are either bold and vigorous or meticulous and refined.
Azure dragon and white tiger
Symmetry governs the layout: paired motifs, a dragon on the left with a tiger on the right, or a cutting stitch that makes both halves identical.
Sparse enough to gallop, dense enough to shut out wind
Layering leaves passages open and passages solid, achieving the maxim of space enough to gallop a horse through and density enough to keep the wind out.
Gauze, satin and homespun
Gauze and satin carry the fine work, while homespun blue-and-white cloth, coloured by stitch alone, served poorer households.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery is the local form of Manchu embroidery in the Xiuyan area of eastern Liaoning (Liaodong). In villages where Manchu residents live in mixed settlement with Han Chinese, the embroidered designs draw on local elements beyond traditional Manchu patterns, such as Guandong (Northeast) paper-cuts and folk auspicious characters. The materials are principally gauze or satin fabric, with homespun cloth and blue-and-white cloth as supplements. The composition stresses left-right symmetry — either answering each other in balance, or with the green dragon on the left and the white tiger on the right — or the cut-embroidery (gexiu) method is used to make the two sides exactly identical.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery fully expresses the creative artistic passion and aesthetic ideals of the local Manchu people, while vividly displaying the main features of Manchu social life in Xiuyan; it has research value in sociology, ethnology, and related fields.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xia Liyun 05-2693
- Sun Yanling 05-2694
- Liu Yamei 05-2695
- Zhang Lixin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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