Manchu Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
Manchu embroidery is the most distinctive traditional art of the Manchu people; its products are found everywhere on everyday articles and dress, and are most exquisite in pillow-end embroidery. The custom of Manchu women sitting together on the heated kang (earthen bed), doing needlework while receiving guests, has been recorded since the Liao and Jin dynasties. The line recorded in 'Miscellaneous Notes from the Rongzhai Studio' (Rongzhai Suibi) — 'when the wine is finished and the guests have dispersed, each returns to her former seat and goes on embroidering as before' — reflects precisely the way needlework was woven into daily domestic life.
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. Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery, commonly called 'needle embroidery' (zhenxiu), 'tie-flower work' (zahua), or 'embroidery' (xiuhua), has a long history and is popular mainly in the rural areas of the Jinzhou region of Liaoning Province where Manchu people live in concentrated communities. Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery usually takes homespun local cloth as its ground. Embroidered pieces are chiefly everyday practical items — tiger-head caps, head scarves, cloud-shaped shoulder collars, garments and skirts, bellybands, shoes and hats, purses, sachets, bed curtains, door curtains, quilt covers, and pillow ends — but also include ceremonial and festive articles such as wedding dresses, longevity banners, funerary banners, and opera costumes. Jinzhou lies in the Liaoxi Corridor, where Manchu and Han cultures blend and meet. The local Manchu embroidery therefore preserves, on the one hand, the plain and simple craft style of the Jurchen, who did appliqué work on leather, and includes many patterns and contents that concretely embody shamanic culture, such as the 'tree of life', the 'mama' (grandmother) figures, and Manchu myths and legends; on the other hand, it has absorbed a great deal from the Han Chinese embroidery techniques of Lu embroidery of the Central Plains and Su embroidery of Jiangnan, as well as artistic nourishment from literati painting, weaving refinement into its bold style and demonstrating the richness and inclusiveness of local culture. Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery has a wide range of subjects, varied styles, abundant charm, and profound meaning, and is deeply loved by the local people.
Tiger spirit and boar spirit in relief
Her shamanic totem series in the raised-embroidery technique makes the figures stand physically above the ground of the silk.
The eight-banner palette
Using the banner colours of red, yellow, blue and white, her birds and beasts are deliberately distorted to convey the wish for blessing.
Xia Liyun's teaching
Trained by her mother, Xia Liyun borrows from Su embroidery and has founded a teaching studio as well as a school course in Manchu stitching.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery is popular in the area of Guta District, Jinzhou, Liaoning. The relief embroidery (fudiaoxiu) of the Xia family is its most distinctive feature, with series works such as 'Tiger God' and 'Pig God' stitched on themes of Manchu shamanic totems. The palette takes as its main tones the red, yellow, blue, and white revered by the Eight Banners; the forms are exaggerated and transformed, and the style is mellow, honest, and plain.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Xia Liyun (recorded in the official archives of an associated inheritor): Female, Manchu ethnicity, born in February 1964, from Yi County, Liaoning Province. From childhood she learned embroidery stitches from her mother. In her creative work she draws on and incorporates the various embroidery techniques and stitch types of Su embroidery and other schools; her works take as their main tones the red, yellow, blue, and white revered by the Manchu Eight Banners, with bright and gorgeous color and a strong air of folk custom. The flowers, birds, fish, and insects she embroiders are exaggerated and transformed in form, with a mellow, honest, and plain style, artistically expressing people's fine wishes for blessing and good fortune. Her representative works are the series depicting shamanic totems, created with relief embroidery — a distinctive technique of Manchu embroidery — such as 'Tiger God' and 'Pig God'. For many years she has devoted herself to restoring, transmitting, and developing Manchu embroidery; she has established teaching studios and also offers embroidery courses in schools. She is a representative inheritor of Manchu embroidery (Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery), a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fifth batch.
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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