Ditan Weaving Craftsmanship

Ⅷ-110Traditional CraftsmanshipTianshuishiqinzhou, GansuBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The Tianshui silk carpet making technique was essentially finalized at least more than a hundred years ago.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Tianshui silk carpet weaving technique is a traditional craft that uses high-quality silk as raw material and, through pattern design, dyeing, carving, and more than twenty process steps of purely manual weaving, produces silk carpets with a relief artistic effect. This technique is mainly distributed in Qinzhou District of Tianshui City, Gansu Province, and its surrounding counties; the weaving workshops are small-scale household operations. Tianshui silk carpets include wall-hung forms, framed artistic hangings, and floor carpets. Their patterns are exquisite, simple and elegant, the carpet face gorgeous and antique in flavor, and they have such characteristics as sound absorption, moisture resistance, warmth retention, immunity to insect damage, resistance to decay, and environmental friendliness. The Tianshui silk carpet weaving process is intricate: using high-quality silk as raw material, it is produced purely by hand through more than twenty process steps including pattern design, drawing the full-scale pattern draft, marking the pattern, calculating materials, dyeing, rewinding the yarn, mounting the warp, setting the warp, passing the weft, tamping flat, clipping the stray pile, flat-clipping, carving, and finishing. It adopts the traditional figure-eight knot hand-weaving pile method. For the wall-hanging's double-warp double-weft netted structure, in the figure-eight knot pile weaving, an eight-shaped pile knot is tied on one warp head formed by the front and back warp threads, called the "figure-eight knot." Tianshui silk carpet faces have a relief artistic effect. The weaver leaves the main motifs of the pattern with longer pile, and according to the required line count and the pattern design, weaves different required thicknesses. Through slicing-clipping and carving, the main motifs of the carpet face are brought forward, commonly called "soft carving," making the carpet face exquisite, elegant, and magnificent, with a special artistic style. The history of the Tianshui hand-woven silk carpet technique is said to trace back to the Han and Tang periods. In the late Qing and early Republican period, in Tianshui there were some small weaving workshops making saddle cushions and cold-resistant carpets and hangings for nomadic peoples. The Tianshui silk carpet weaving technique blends diverse cultures; the finished products have brilliant colors and exquisite patterns, displaying ethnic customs and aesthetic value, and are a typical representative of the traditional manual craft of the northwest region.

Archival Record of Process Steps

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Tianshui silk carpet workshops are mostly hidden within homes; in the lanes of Qinzhou District, the parlor is also the weaving floor, and the weaver works from an enlarged full-scale pattern draft: after marking the pattern and calculating materials, they mount the warp, pass the weft, and tamp flat, then slice-clip and carve to bring out the thickness, called soft carving. The pile uses the figure-eight knot, tying an eight-shaped pile knot on one warp head formed by the front and back warp threads, so the carpet face floats up like a relief. Liu Jingbo entered the Tianshui Silk Carpet Factory in 1980, starting from dyeing and winding the yarn.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Tianshui established a hand-woven carpet cooperative; today the household workshop remains one of the main sites of transmission and practice for Tianshui silk carpets. At the same time, this technique occupies an important place in China's art of hand-woven silk, displaying the charm of Oriental art and possessing high cultural content and artistic-research value. Liu Jingbo (per the official archives of the associated inheritor): male, Han ethnicity, born September 1963, from Tianshui City, Gansu Province. Representative inheritor of the fifth batch of the national-level intangible cultural heritage item, the carpet weaving technique (Tianshui silk carpet weaving technique). Tianshui silk carpet weaving technician. In 1980 he entered the Tianshui Silk Carpet Factory, and under the instruction of masters Wu Xuexin and Jin Aihua specialized in learning the entire flow of the Tianshui silk carpet weaving technique, starting from the most basic yarn dyeing and winding, and after a year learned the figure-eight knot pile-weaving method as well as slicing-clipping and carving, and began independently designing patterns. From 1984 to 1986 he studied in the weaving and embroidery program at Hebei Province Arts and Crafts School. To ensure the ancient technique could be transmitted, he successively took on twenty-six disciples including Wang Lizhen and Huang Jingrong. The silk artistic wall hanging "Thousand-Armed and Thousand-Eyed Guanyin" that he designed in 1990 won a gold medal at the first National Light Industry Exposition sponsored by the China National Light Industry Council; from 2014 to 2015 his work "Chinese Totems" won the Hundred Flowers Cup Gold Award for Chinese Arts and Crafts Excellence awarded by the China Arts and Crafts Association, among others.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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