Craftsmanship of Nanjing Yunjin Brocade
01 · Historical Records
After the southward migration of the Northern Song, Nanjing became the silk-weaving center of China. The weaving of gold ornament into Nanjing yunjin brocade began around the Yuan dynasty, while colored zhuanghua gold brocade flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties. During the Kangxi to Jiaqing reigns of the Qing dynasty, Nanjing yunjin production was on an enormous scale: there were more than thirty thousand wooden looms, over two hundred thousand people made their living from the trade, annual output exceeded one million bolts of brocade, and the value of production was more than thirty million taels of silver. At the end of the Guangxu reign the yunjin industry began to decline; when Nanjing was liberated in 1949, only four looms in the whole city could still produce yunjin.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Among ancient silk textiles, "jin" (brocade) represents the highest level of technical achievement. Nanjing yunjin distills the essence of Chinese silk-weaving craftsmanship and is one of the three famous brocades of ancient China. More than fifteen hundred years ago, historical records already contained written accounts of Nanjing silk textiles, but no physical pieces have been handed down. At the end of the Eastern Jin, Nanjing had a special institution for producing brocade—the Douchang Jin Office. Nanjing yunjin is woven by hand on the traditional large-pattern wooden loom (dahualou mu zhi ji), with a pattern-hauler (zhuaihua gong) and a weaver (zhishou) working in close coordination. This work is physically demanding and calls for a high level of skill. Old artisans summarize the pattern-hauling technique in a mnemonic verse—"one swing, two press, three copy, four join, five lift, six cup, seven pull, eight scoop, nine scatter"—while the weaver must tread the sheds open with the feet, throw the shuttle with the hands, recite the mnemonics with the mouth, work out the color scheme in the mind, watch every movement, and coordinate the whole body. The main varieties of yunjin fall into four great categories: zhijin (gold-weft brocade), kujin, kuduan, and zhuanghua (polychrome brocade). The first three can already be produced by modern machinery, but the "wahua panzhi" (excavated-flower disc weaving) and "zhuhua yise" (a different color for each flower) of zhuanghua can still be executed only by hand. Nanjing yunjin is rich in cultural and scientific content and can provide concrete evidence for the history of Chinese craft, the history of science and technology, and cultural history. With the development of modern technology, new silk fabrics are constantly appearing and apparel fabrics are being replaced ever faster, reducing market demand for yunjin; moreover, the apprenticeship period for yunjin is long and the labor intensive, so young people are mostly unwilling to take up the work, and the zhuanghua hand-weaving craft is on the verge of being lost.
The tall wooden drawloom
The tall wooden drawloom is over twenty feet high: the drawboy upstairs lifts the warp threads called for by the pattern while the weaver below treads the shed and throws the shuttle.
Drawboy and weaver in coordination
Every brocade figure depends on two people working in step: the drawboy lifts harnesses on the caller's commands while the weaver treads and throws the shuttle in sync.
The nine drawloom calls
Nine calls — whip, press, scoop, close, raise, hold, draw, delve, scatter — encode each harness movement, serving as the loom's unwritten command language.
Excavated brocade weaving
The heart of the brocade technique: float threads are excavated to open the figured areas, which are then filled in colour by colour, guided purely by experience.
Changing colour flower by flower
Several colour wefts within a single blossom require colour changes flower by flower; no machine can substitute, so the colour plan must be held in the maker's mind.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yunjin production is now mainly distributed across five districts of Nanjing: Qinhuai, Jianye, Baixia, Xuanwu, and Qixia.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Craftsmanship of Nanjing Yunjin Brocade.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
After 1949, through rescue, support, and protection, the yunjin craft has been passed on. At present, the Yunjin Research Institute has twenty-four confirmed inheritors, all technical personnel with many years of experience in yunjin design and weaving. This resource should be protected and well utilized so that the Nanjing yunjin craft can be passed on and developed. Zhu Feng (per the official records of the associated inheritor): Representative inheritor of the Nanjing yunjin wooden-loom zhuanghua hand-weaving craft, a first-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project; senior craft-art designer at the Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute; master of Chinese craft and art. He attained profound achievement in research on the technology, design style, and culture of yunjin; he summarized the characteristics of yunjin's color-matching art and published a monograph on the subject, bringing yunjin color design to an effect that is rich yet not heavy, brilliant yet not vulgar, and elaborate yet not chaotic. He was a founding master of yunjin design and color matching from the establishment of the Yunjin Research Institute onward. His representative works include the zhuanghua satins "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" and "Butterflies in Love with Flowers", and "Golden Ground in Ten Thousand Purples and Thousand Reds". His main writings include "On the Style and Techniques of Yunjin from the Aesthetic Viewpoint of Harmony in Opposition" and "The Artistic Laws of Cloud Patterns in Yunjin". Male, of the Han ethnicity, born in 1915, died in 2009, a native of Nanjing, Jiangsu. Zhou Shuangxi (per the official records of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han ethnicity, born in July 1955, a native of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Representative inheritor of the Nanjing yunjin wooden-loom zhuanghua hand-weaving craft, a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Senior craft-art designer. Over forty years in the craft, he has conducted distinctive research on yunjin zhuanghua varieties of different weaves, and is versed in all the procedures and techniques of yunjin weaving. Since 1983 he has been responsible for the study and replication of ancient silk artifacts; he participated in major research projects such as the replication of the "gold-weft peacock-feather zhuanghua gauze dragon-robe fabric", a national treasure whose technique had been lost for more than three hundred years, and the replication of the "yellow-ground gold-weft zhuanghua satin dragon-robe fabric with a straight body and full over-shoulder sleeves". He also participated in the recovery and development of long-lost brocade-weaving techniques such as two-end gauze and four-end leno silk, and his research results filled a gap in the field. His representative works include "Ten Thousand Longevities for China" and "Cranes Calling in Unison".
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhu Feng 01-0131
- Zhou Shuangxi 03-1307
- Jin Wen 03-1308
- Guo Jun 05-2728
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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