Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
According to the town gazetteers of Tongxiang, several dozen printing and dyeing workshops were opened during the late Qing and early Republican period. The best known of these were Shimen Fengtongyu, founded in 1841 by Feng Xiaokang, grandfather of Feng Zikai, and dyeing houses such as Lanmaofeng, established by the Lan family of Chongfu during the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty. After the 1950s, the units that still persisted in blue calico production locally included a few individual hand printing and dyeing workshops such as Chongfu Lanmaofeng and Xieda.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Blue calico is also known as “yaoban bu” (medicine-spotted cloth) and “kaohua bu” (stencil-printed cloth). The blue calico printing and dyeing technique is a traditional folk dyeing and finishing craft in which patterns are resist-dyed onto natural white greige cloth by means of a physical resist-printing method. The Tongxiang blue calico printing and dyeing technique is distributed mainly in the central towns of Chongfu, Shimen, Wuzhen and Wutong in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, and in more than twenty surrounding rural market towns. Tongxiang blue calico is a traditional clothing fabric of the Jiangnan water region; in Tongxiang it is also widely used in daily life for quilt covers, mosquito nets and wrapping cloths. The complete printing and dyeing process of blue calico comprises design, block carving, sizing, dip-dyeing, paste scraping, rinsing, sun-drying and finishing. The motifs of Tongxiang blue calico are extremely rich and are arranged in free, varied compositions with a distinctly Jiangnan style. The motifs draw on literary allusions and similes to convey feeling and aspiration — plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, or bees and butterflies, wild geese and orioles, or the zither, chess, calligraphy and painting — brimming with charm and delight. The most typical composition is the “cluster flower” (tuanhua), commonly called the “ball flower” (piqiu hua), which follows the layout rules known as “yaoyao”, “yaoer” and “yaosan”. Within the sharply contrasting blue-and-white patterns are irregular grey, dry cracklines — “ice cracks” — that are natural and beautiful, and are hailed as “the soul of hand printing and dyeing”. The technique belongs to the physical resist-printing family. Drawing, block carving and dyeing are technically demanding and are carried out entirely by hand, using indigo as the dye. The resulting cloth withstands washing and sunlight, its colour is stable, and the pattern grows brighter with each washing. The blue calico printing and dyeing technique has a long history and has spread widely. According to the Wuzhen Town Gazetteer: “The fabrics dyed in the dyehouses of our town are all local goods, such as silk noil cloth, bolts of cloth and similar materials.”
Archival Record of Process Steps
The complete printing and dyeing process of blue calico comprises design, block carving, sizing, dip-dyeing, paste scraping, rinsing, sun-drying and finishing.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Tongxiang blue calico printing and dyeing technique is distributed mainly in the central towns of Chongfu, Shimen, Wuzhen and Wutong in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, and in more than twenty surrounding rural market towns. Tongxiang blue calico is a traditional clothing fabric of the Jiangnan water region; in Tongxiang it is also widely used for quilt covers, mosquito nets and wrapping cloths. Blue calico, also known as “yaoban bu” and “kaohua bu”, is a traditional folk dyeing and finishing craft in which patterns are resist-dyed onto natural white greige cloth by a physical resist-printing method. The Tongxiang Municipal Culture Centre (Tongxiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Centre) is the protecting unit for the project.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Nantong Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship · Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship · Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, production-oriented protection bases such as the Blue Calico Factory Co., Ltd. and the Tongxiang Fengtongyu Blue Calico Art Co., Ltd. have played an important role in transmitting the technique, and blue calico produced with traditional methods is exported to more than ten countries and regions including Japan, France, the United States and Cuba. After several hundred years of transmission and development, blue calico has accumulated a large stock of auspicious folk motifs. Enduringly popular designs such as “Phoenix and Peony” and “Lion Rolling an Embroidered Ball” all come down from old blocks; in visual language these patterns express people’s finest ideals, give aesthetic pleasure, and demonstrate the cultural appeal and aesthetic value of the technique. Zhou Jiming (as recorded in the official inheritor archive): Male, Han ethnicity, born in June 1951, from Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province. Representative inheritor of the blue calico printing and dyeing technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item from the fifth national batch. Master of Arts and Crafts of Zhejiang Province. In 1979 he entered the Tongxiang Arts and Crafts Printing and Dyeing Factory, and in 1985 became its director. Through practice he organically combined the practical and artistic qualities of blue calico, continually innovating and improving production methods, and inherited and developed the distinctive artistic style of Tongxiang blue calico. He has trained apprentices in the traditional printing and dyeing technique. Representative works include the blue calico art hanging scrolls Feng Zikai Cartoons and Along the River During the Qingming Festival, the tablecloths Hundred Chrysanthemums and Wealth and Peace, and the carpet Blessings as Boundless as Heaven and Longevity as Enduring as Earth. His works have been shown many times in exchange exhibitions and have won national-level awards.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wu Yuanxin 01-0144
- Liu Dapao 03-1312
- Wang Zhenxing 04-1839
- Zhou Jiming 05-2733
- Jiang Liangshou 05-2734
- Liu Xinjian 05-2735
- Aijingwei
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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