Beijing Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
With the end of Qing rule, the former Beijing embroidery artisans scattered among the people; among them was Liang Zhi, who moved to Nandaniu Village in Dingxing County, Baoding City.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Beijing embroidery is a traditional court hand-embroidery technique. Liang Zhi studied embroidery under the veteran court artisan Zhang Da and passed it on to later generations of the Liang family and to his apprentices. As a result, in addition to circulating in the Beijing area, Beijing embroidery also spread to several dozen villages centered on Nandaniu Village in Dingxing. Dingxing Beijing embroidery has a style of beautiful patterns, ingenious conception, meticulous workmanship, lively stitchwork, and refined, elegant colors; its stitching is marked by “smoothness, evenness, harmony, luster, fluency, and regularity.” The finest silks and satins are generally chosen as the ground fabric, and the embroidery threads are made of natural silk with a natural sheen; once embroidered, the panel is light and soft, comfortable to the touch, and shows tiny loose hairs when held up to the light. In a hand-embroidered picture, the requirements of the technique mean that threads of different thicknesses may be used during the stitching of the image. For example, silk threads can be split into finer strands when embroidering. Color combinations are even, with flexible gradations. Because the embroidery threads allow complex use of color and the motifs are drawn from a wide range of sources, patterns of almost any material or subject can be embroidered. Gold and silver can also be hammered into leaf and twisted into gold and silver threads for use in embroidery; dragon, phoenix, and similar patterns stitched with gold and silver thread are known as “gold-and-silver couching,” and stitch by stitch they fully display the aristocratic air of the imperial house, embodying the sumptuous and exquisite aesthetic of the court. The common subjects of Dingxing Beijing embroidery fall into auspicious motifs and bogu (archaistic) motifs, among others; through symbolism, implied meaning, homophony, analogy, and written characters, they produce decorative effects rich in cultural connotation. For example, mandarin ducks symbolize love, and butterflies symbolize the pursuit of happiness and beautiful love. Characters are also used to express auspiciousness: the words “fu” (blessing), “shou” (longevity), and “lu” (prosperity) are embroidered directly into the design, simple and clear. Bogu motifs arrange and combine ancient porcelains, jade objects, and the like as decorative patterns. The main stitches of Dingxing Beijing embroidery include satin stitch, long-and-short stitch, seed stitch, couched gold, lock stitch, padding stitch, net stitch, and three-dimensional stitch. When embroidering, the combination of different stitches produces distinctive artistic effects. For example, the auspicious birds and beasts on the rank badges (buzi) of official robes are rendered in satin stitch and rolled stitch to show their fur and feathers loose, smooth, and vivid; long-and-short stitch is used to present flowers in the fullness of their beauty, vying in splendor; and couched gold stitch is used for dragon and phoenix patterns, giving a visually exquisite and sumptuous effect. Dingxing Beijing embroidery has provided employment opportunities for large numbers of rural women in the area and has driven the development of the surrounding rural economy. Many of its finest embroideries are held in the collections of the Palace Museum and various costume and apparel museums, giving it considerable appreciative and collecting value; wall hangings, cushions, and other modern home accessories, as well as hand-embroidered garments that absorb traditional motifs while incorporating modern fashion elements, have practical value.
Liang Zhi and the palace artisan Zhang Da
After the Qing fell, the palace embroiderer Liang Zhi settled at Nandaniu village, learned from the court artisan Zhang Da and passed the craft to his family and pupils.
Six qualities of the stitch
Known for elegant design and lively, clear-coloured stitching with the six qualities of evenness, neatness, harmony, sheen, smoothness and regularity, it uses fine silk satin and natural silk thread.
Coiled gold-and-silver embroidery
Gold and silver beaten into foil and twisted into thread produce the coiled-metal dragons and phoenixes that convey a sumptuous palace aesthetic.
Even, layered and seed stitches
Even, layered, seed, coiled-gold, chain, padded, net and three-dimensional stitches bring out fur on rank badges, flowers in full bloom and opulent dragons.
Liang Shuping's three-dimensional embroidery
The fifth-batch inheritor Liang Shuping, born in 1964, makes the motifs more popular and fashion-conscious; her three-dimensional embroidery was patented in 2013.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Dingxing Beijing embroidery is centered on Nandaniu Village in Dingxing County, Hebei Province, and has spread to several dozen surrounding villages; passed down from generation to generation by the Liang family and their apprentices, it is the most important branch of Beijing embroidery outside the capital region.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Beijing Embroidery · Beijing Embroidery.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Liang Shuping (per the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in September 1964, a native of Dingxing County, Hebei Province. Building on the tradition, she has continually raised her own technical and creative standards, making her designs more folk-styled and fashionable and closer to everyday life, and has gradually developed her own distinctive artistic characteristics and style. Her work features delicate, dexterous stitchwork, fine and even embroidery, and images that are vivid and lifelike. Representative works include Twin Phoenixes in Couched Gold (jacket and skirt), Couched-Gold Rank Badge, Red Phoenix Facing the Sun, and the thangka Lion's Roar. Many of her embroideries are held by the Palace Museum and various museums. Representative inheritor of Beijing embroidery, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project, fifth batch. In 2013, the three-dimensional hand-embroidery technique she developed received a utility-model patent certificate.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Liu Xiuhua 05-2711
- Liang Shuping 05-2712
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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