Brief introduction of embroidery

Embroidery, known as needle embroidery in ancient times, is a process that designs are embroidered on textiles with embroidery needles to draw colorful lines, and the patterns are formed by embroidery marks.

It was called "haze" and "needle haze" in ancient times.

Because embroidery is mostly done by women, it is an important part of needlework.

Embroidery is one of the ancient handcraft skills in China, and the handcraft embroidery technology in China has a history of more than 2,000 years.

According to the Book of History, as early as 4,000 years ago, the system of chapter clothes stipulated that "clothes should be embroidered".

In the Zhou Dynasty, there was a record of "embroidery and silk reeling".

The level of embroidery in the Warring States and Han Dynasties unearthed in Hubei and Hunan is very high.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, embroidery was used for painting, calligraphy and decoration.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the scale of court embroidery was large, and folk embroidery was further developed. Suzhou Embroidery, Guangdong Embroidery, Dragon Embroidery, Xiang Embroidery and Shu Embroidery have been produced successively, which are called "five famous embroideries".

In addition, there are Gu embroidery, Jing embroidery, Ou embroidery, Lu embroidery, Min embroidery, Bian embroidery, Han embroidery, Ma embroidery and embroidery.

Everyone has their own style, which has been passed down to this day and lasts forever.

There are dozens of embroidery stitches, such as Qi Zhen, sleeve needle, inserting needle, long and short needle, minute needle, Ping Jin, and shifting sand, which are rich in colors and have their own characteristics.

Embroidery can be divided into silk embroidery, feather embroidery and hair embroidery according to materials.

The uses of embroidery include: shroud, song and dance or opera clothes, tablecloths, pillowcases, cushions and other daily necessities, screens, wall hangings and other furnishings.

Gu embroidery is the most famous embroidery in Ming Dynasty.

Embroidery has been handed down from generation to generation in Weinan and spread all over the city.

There are hundreds of different colors.

There are mainly pillows, children's hats, Chinese-style chest covers, door curtains, insoles, bedspreads, sewing kits, wallets, animal toys and so on. Most of them are flowers, birds, insects, fish and genre paintings. Women in Tongguan embroidered peony symbolizing wealth and elegant lotus flowers on both ends of cloth stirrups, which are exquisite and attractive. They are called "a unique skill of Dongfu embroidery".

With the changes of the times, the content of rural products has also been updated.

At the same time, some traditional embroidery has also entered the foreign trade market.

Hundred Birds Skirts, Princess Anle of Tang Zhongzong owns 200 hundred birds skirts, all of which are rare treasures.

This is a dress made of natural feathers.

Feather embroidery can not only embroider landscape flowers and birds, but also embroider various daily necessities pillows, feather embroidered carpets and feather embroidered clothes.

Shui people's ponytail embroidery: the oldest embroidery art

In the long history, clever Shui women have created rich and colorful national and folk crafts. The well-known ponytail embroidery is unique, known as the living fossil of Chinese embroidery, and it is a must in the world. It is a valuable artistic material for studying the folk customs, folk customs, totem worship and national culture of the Shui people.

Mawei embroidery was selected into the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list, which brought better opportunities for the protection of this ancient primitive art.

Embroidery originated very early.

Embroidered characters of hedgehogs can be found in history books.

At the time of Yu Shun, there was embroidery.

Officials were appointed to perform their duties in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and there was court embroidery in the Han Dynasty.

During the Three Kingdoms period, Wu asked Mrs. Zhao to embroider the landscape army array. In the first year of Tang Yongzhen (A.D. 805), Lu Meiniang embroidered seven volumes of "Northern Territory" on the ruler and silk, which was famous for its embroidery and recorded before.

Since the Han Dynasty, embroidery has gradually become a boudoir stunt, and famous embroidery workers have also occupied a place in the art history.

In primitive society, people decorated with tattoos and tattooed faces.

Since linen, wool, silk and clothes came into being, people began to embroider totems and other patterns on clothes.

According to Shangshu, as early as 4,000 years ago, the clothing system stipulated that clothes should be embroidered.

According to the pre-Qin literature, vermilion was painted with silk thread, and vermilion was tattooed on plain white clothes, and there were so-called plain clothes Zhu embroidery, Jia embroidery and Jia embroidery.

At that time, there were both embroidery and painting, and there was also the practice of first embroidering patterns and then filling in colors.

These embroideries are very strict in pattern structure and clear in geometric layout. They use a large number of patterns such as flowers, birds, dragons and animals, and romantically combine animal and plant images. They use realism and abstraction in techniques, interspersed with wrinkles, and the embroidery images are slim and clear, leaving more blank spaces, which embodies the important characteristics of embroidery patterns in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

At present, the earliest embroideries are two embroideries from the Warring States Period unearthed from Chu Tomb in Changsha, Hunan.

Looking at its stitch, it is completely embroidered on silk and Luo with braided needles (that is, lock embroidery). The stitch is neat, the color scheme is elegant, and the lines are smooth, making the pattern like a dragon and phoenix dance, natural and vivid, lively and powerful, which fully shows chu xiu's artistic achievements.

Embroideries of the Han Dynasty have been unearthed in the Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang, Wuluchong Tomb in Hebei, Northern Inner Mongolia and Astana Tomb in Turpan, Xinjiang, especially 1972 Mawangdui in Changsha, which is helpful to understand the embroidery style of the Han Dynasty.

Judging from these embroideries, the themes of Han embroidery patterns are mostly wave moire, phoenix flying with wings, galloping beasts, and ribbon patterns and geometric patterns common in mirror decoration in Han Dynasty.

The newly adopted base material for embroidery was the popular fabric at that time, such as silk brocade woven into auspicious words such as "Long life and bright future" and "Changle".

Its techniques are mainly lock embroidery, with full patterns, compact composition, neat stitches and extremely smooth lines.

Silk fabrics from the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Northern Dynasties were unearthed in Dunhuang, Xinjiang, Hotan, Gansu, Bachu and Turpan. The whole embroidery, whether it is a pattern or a blank space, is embroidered with fine lock embroidery, which has become the characteristic of embroidery everywhere.

Embroidery spread and unearthed in the Tang Dynasty is closely related to religion and art in the Tang Dynasty. Among them, there are many embroidered Buddha statues in the Tang Dynasty, such as the embroidered account of Ling jiusan found in the Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang and the illustration of Sakyamuni in Nara National Museum, which are directly related to the belief in Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty.

At this time, the embroidery technology still follows the lock embroidery of Han Dynasty, but the stitch technology has already started to change to the flat embroidery, and a variety of different stitches and colors have been adopted.

The embroidery base used is not limited to brocade and plain silk.

The patterns used in embroidery are closely related to painting. In the paintings of the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the Buddha figures, landscape flowers and birds are also very prosperous.

Therefore, Buddha statues, pavilions, flowers and birds have also become embroidery patterns, with lively composition and bright colors.

The use of micro-embroidery, combined with the use of various color lines and stitches, replaces the painting depicted by pigments, forming a special art, which is also the unique style of Tang embroidery.

As for winding the outline of the pattern with gold and silver thread to enhance the three-dimensional sense of the object, it can also be regarded as an innovation of embroidery in the Tang Dynasty.

Before the Tang Dynasty, embroidery was mostly for practical and decorative purposes, and the content of embroidery was related to the needs and customs of life.

Embroidery works in Song Dynasty are not only practical products, but also devoted to embroidery.

Since the Jin and Tang Dynasties, literati loved calligraphy and applied it to painting. Calligraphy and painting was the highest artistic expression at that time, but in Song Dynasty, it was applied to silk embroidery, and the style of calligraphy and painting directly affected the style of embroidery.

Embroidery painting should be closely related to the paintings of all ages up to the Qing Dynasty.

The development of embroidery in Song Dynasty was encouraged by the imperial court at that time.

In order to make the works achieve vivid artistic conception of painting and calligraphy, there should be a plan before embroidery, and the situation should be assessed and refined when embroidery.

Composition must be simplified, and the choice of patterns is very important, which is completely different from embroidery with or without patterns in the Tang Dynasty. Dong Qichang's Secret Records of Yun Qing Xuan in the Ming Dynasty recorded: "Song people embroidered with fine needle and thread, one or two threads were stopped by velvet, and one needle was as thin as hair, making it gorgeous and brilliant.

The mountains and rivers are far interesting, the pavilions are deep, the figures are vivid and the flowers and birds are graceful.

The best one is better than painting, and the third one is interesting and well-prepared. So much for the spring breeze. "

This description roughly explains the characteristics of Song embroidery.

There are few embroideries handed down from the Yuan Dynasty. Taiwan Province Province only hired one work in the Palace Museum, which still inherited the legacy of the Song Dynasty.

The velvet used by Yuan people is a little thicker and the needles are not dense, which is not as beautiful as Song embroidery.

The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty believed in Lamaism. Embroidery is not only dotted with ordinary costumes, but also has a strong religious color. It is used to make Buddha statues, scrolls, flags and monk's hats, represented by the embroidered King Kong statue of the Yuan Dynasty preserved in Potala Palace, and has a strong decorative style.

In addition to various stitches, the embroidery unearthed from Li Yu 'an's tomb in the Yuan Dynasty in Shandong Province also found the practice of sticking silk.

It embroiders plum blossoms on a skirt, and the petals are embroidered with silk materials, which is full of three-dimensional sense.

Embroidery in the Ming Dynasty began in Guluxiang Garden in Shanghai during Jiajing period, and was handed down from generation to generation with embroidery, and many famous ladies emerged.

Gu Shouqian, the second grandson of Gu Ming, and his wife, Han Ximeng, are well versed in the six methods, far from the true biography of hair embroidery in Tang and Song Dynasties.

Imitation embroidery of ancient and modern celebrity calligraphy and painting, silk color matching, secret biography, so it can be printed in words, embroidered landscape figures, flowers and birds, all exquisite, known as Luxiangyuan Gu embroidery, covered with so-called painting embroidery.

This is the famous ancient embroidery.

Gu embroidery stitch mainly inherited the most complete embroidery stitch in Song Dynasty, and changed and applied it, which can be described as a great achievement of stitch.

Most of the wires used are flat wires, and sometimes twisted wires are used. The thread is as thin as a hair and the stitches are flat, but the variety of colored threads used is incomparable to Song embroidery.

At the same time, the middle color line is used, and the color is borrowed and supplemented, and embroidery and painting are used together to make the manuscript realistic.

According to the needs of the pattern, you can use materials at will, regardless of the method. True grass, Siamese cockfighting tail hair, fine gold and hair can all be embroidered with innovative ideas, especially with hair embroidery to complete the production of paintings, which has never been seen in the history of dyeing and weaving in the world. This shows that Gu embroidery has extremely ingenious embroidery techniques.

Embroidery in Qing Dynasty was mostly court embroidery, which was mostly drawn by painters in Ruyige, a palace manufacturing office. After approval, it was sent to three weaving and embroidery workshops under the jurisdiction of Jiangnan Weaving, and the embroidery was still very neat and exquisite.

Besides the court embroidery, there are many local embroideries, such as Lu embroidery, Yue embroidery, Xiang embroidery, Jing embroidery, Su embroidery and Shu embroidery, all of which have their own local characteristics.

Suzhou Embroidery, Sichuan Embroidery, Guangdong Embroidery and Hunan Embroidery are the four major local embroideries, which are later called "Four Famous Embroideries", among which Suzhou Embroidery is the most famous.

In the heyday of Suzhou embroidery, schools proliferated, famous artists competed for beauty, and embroidery was widely used in daily life, which led to various changes in embroidery stitch, refinement of embroidery workers and more ingenious color matching of embroidery thread.

Most of the patterns made are festive, long-lived and auspicious, especially flower-and-bird embroidery, which is deeply loved by people, and famous embroidery has come out one after another, such as Ding Pei and Shen Shou.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, western learning spread to the east, and innovative works appeared in Suzhou embroidery.

During Guangxu period, Yu Jue's wife Shen was famous for her exquisite embroidery skills and Suzhou embroidery world.

When Shen Shi was 30 years old, it was the 70th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi. Shen Shi embroidered eight "Eight Immortals' Birthdays" and was given the words "Fu" and "Shou", so he changed his name to Shen Shou.

Shen Xiu developed the old methods with new ideas, expressed light and color, and participated in realism. In his embroidery, he showed the characteristics of imitating western painting, and created a new kind of "simulated embroidery" or "artistic embroidery" with diverse stitches and three-dimensional sense.

Embroidery is difficult to preserve, which is why the value of ancient embroidery far exceeds that of other collections.

Most of the embroideries preserved in the Qing Dynasty have fallen off, changed color, or begun to rot. The existing well-preserved embroidery is Fu Lushou, a folk collection in Gansu. Most of the common embroideries in Qing Dynasty were discolored, with rough embroidery and simple composition, but Fu Lushou was 260cm long and 1 10cm wide, with bright colors, fine embroidery and lifelike characters.

This kind of embroidery is extremely rare, and it is the only one on the market. Its value is far more than 10 million. In addition to its high collection value, it also has a profound cultural heritage and is a precious intangible cultural heritage.

Shen Shou, a modern embroidery artist, not only has superb embroidery skills, but also sorts out the embroidery stitches of past dynasties, inherits the traditional skills of Gu embroidery and Su embroidery, and refers to the expression methods of western sketch, oil painting and photography to create scattered needles and rotating needles to express the light and shade of objects.

Her Embroidered Portrait of the Italian Emperor was exhibited at the China Arts and Crafts Association of the World Expo in Dulan, Italy, and won the highest award for excellence in the world.

19 1 1 She founded a self-employed women's workshop in Tianjin in 2006, taught embroidery skills, organized workshops for women's normal schools and trained professionals. In her later years, she wrote Xuee's Embroidery Manual, which summarized Chinese embroidery since Tang and Song Dynasties, Gu embroidery in Ming Dynasty and her embroidery skills in art embroidery workshops, and made outstanding contributions to Chinese embroidery art.

With the development and innovation of Suzhou embroidery, many new embroideries have been formed, such as random embroidery, bundle embroidery, Shuang Mianxiu, double-sided embroidery with different colors, subtle embroidery and colorful embroidery.

In addition, there are many embroidery of frontier ethnic minorities, which also fully shows the natural beauty and simple beauty of the original style.

Embroidery was mostly practical at first, but by the production of Song, Yuan, Guang and calligraphy and painting, it gradually became an artistic treasure.

Most of the embroideries in the Forbidden City belong to this category.

The earliest era was the Five Dynasties, and the most articles were the Qing Dynasty.

After several generations of innovation and development, each has its own characteristics and achieved great success.

The collections of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan are almost all fine works, with even embroidery, fine needle and thread, exquisite color and won the essence of calligraphy, and all of them are mounted into scrolls, which often makes viewers mistakenly think that calligraphy and painting are to appreciate the artistic value of the collection.

1958, dragon and phoenix embroidery was unearthed from Chu tomb in Changsha, China. It is the ancient embroidery in China during the Warring States Period more than 2,000 years ago, and it is one of the earliest embroidery objects in China.

In the Han Dynasty, embroidery was more widely used and more artifacts were unearthed.

Embroidery in Ming Dynasty has become a very expressive work of art, resulting in Suzhou embroidery, Guangdong embroidery, Xiang embroidery and Shu embroidery, which are also called the four famous embroideries.

Gu embroidery in Shanghai Luxiang Garden was the most famous embroidery at that time.

Gu family has been passed down from generation to generation, and his reputation for being good at embroidery is well-known in the north and south of the country and appreciated by the court.

In the Qing Dynasty, Gu embroidery not only shocked the world, but also became famous overseas, attracting many foreign businessmen to Shanghai and ordering a large number of embroidery products from Gu Pai. For a time, Gu embroidery became the general name of embroidery.

China's ancient embroidery has long been unpopular in the international art market, and its price is flat.

It was not until 1993 in Hong Kong, Singapore and other places that someone began to collect it specially.

According to market analysts, it will take collectors 10 years to make embroidery a new favorite in the international market.

In recent two years, at some domestic art auctions, the price competition of embroidery lots is now very high, which is very attractive to buyers.

Embroidery also enjoys a high reputation abroad.

In the eyes of foreigners, embroidery is one of the representatives of China culture and art.

In 2006, Yangzhou embroidery skills were approved by the province as the first batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage protection list.

In the Han dynasty, embroidery began to show the beauty of art.

Because of the economic prosperity, all walks of life are prosperous, especially the silk weaving industry; When the rich people in society rise and form a new consumer class, the supply and demand of embroidery arises at the historic moment. Not only has it become a widely used costume among the people, but hand embroidery production is also moving towards specialization, especially its skills are advancing by leaps and bounds.

Judging from the unearthed objects, the embroidery works are exquisite and diverse, presenting a beautiful scene, which can be said to have laid an excellent tradition for this national craft.

Wang Chong's Lun Heng in the Han Dynasty recorded that "embroidery in Qixian County is universal, and constant women are omnipotent", which is enough to explain the popularity of embroidery skills and production at that time.

Because of the maturity of embroidery technology, the Han Dynasty has invisibly begun to distinguish the grades and types of people who use embroidery. Although embroidery is created by working people in their labor, most working people can't afford high-grade silk embroidery.

Ordinary working people can only decorate practical goods such as clothing, shoes and hats with simple embroidery techniques in their lives.

The most representative is the embroidery fragments unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province. Although it has been buried underground for thousands of years, it is still beautiful when unearthed, and the proper color matching and needle and thread application make our modern embroidery workers feel ashamed.

Embroidery technology in Han Dynasty is also very developed in Shandong, which has become the common work of folk women.

Shu embroidery in Chengdu, Sichuan, was also very beautiful in the Han Dynasty.

It can be seen that embroidery technology has been very popular in the Han Dynasty.

There have been dozens of stitches in the development of embroidery technology in Tang and Song Dynasties, and their styles have gradually formed different characteristics in various regions.

Embroidery has not only been embroidered on clothing, but also developed from flowers and plants on clothing to purely ornamental embroidered paintings, embroidered Buddhist scriptures, embroidered Buddha statues and so on.

It is said that Wu Zetian ordered more than 400 embroidered Buddha statues to be presented to temples and neighboring countries, which shows that embroidered Buddha statues have become very popular in the Tang Dynasty.

China's hand embroidery reached its peak in Song Dynasty, and its product quality was unprecedented, especially in creating pure aesthetic artistic embroidery.

The development of hand embroidery in Song Dynasty was encouraged by the imperial court at that time.

According to the History of Song Dynasty. Official Records, embroidered by China Embroidery Institute of the Forbidden City.

During the reign of Hui Zong, there was also an expert in embroidery painting, who divided embroidery painting into landscapes, pavilions, figures and flowers and birds. As a result, famous embroidery workers appeared one after another, which made painting develop to the highest level. From practicality to artistic appreciation, calligraphy and painting were brought into manual embroidery, forming a unique ornamental embroidery.

Under the advocacy of the imperial court, the original manual embroidery technology has been obviously improved in several aspects: 1, the method of "plain embroidery" has changed, and many new stitches have been invented through research; 2. Improve tools and materials, and use refined steel needles and hairlines; 3. Combining the art of calligraphy and painting, taking celebrity works as the theme, pursuing the interest and realm of painting.

Although the decorative production of embroidery in Yuan Dynasty was far less than that in Song Dynasty, it also inherited the realistic embroidery style in Song Dynasty.

The Yuan people who entered the Central Plains set up embroidery bureaus and Luo bureaus all over the country, and the aesthetics and functions of embroidery tended to be artistic.

The emergence of Buddhist themes began in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and the main pattern was baohua.

Song embroidery is only famous for calligraphy and painting, and occasionally there are Buddhist embroidery.

In order to deny the dominant position of Confucianism, Kublai Khan in Yuan Shizu advocated Tibetan Buddhism and revived the Buddhist worship in the Central Plains.

However, the embroidery bureaus all over the country still follow the path of the Song people, embroidering celebrity calligraphy and painting or sketching flowers, and their works are not as good as those of the Song people.

"The Secret Collection of Qing Dynasty" said: "Yuan people used thicker thread, but the needles were not dense, and occasionally they used ink to thrush, which was no longer fine-tuned by Song people!" The Ming Dynasty was an extremely developed era of handicrafts in China. It inherits the excellent embroidery of the Song Dynasty, conforms to the warm atmosphere of the times and continues to carry forward.

Embroidery in the Ming Dynasty also showed many characteristics:

First, in terms of use, it was widely used in all classes of popular society to make everything, and by the late Qing Dynasty, it became the most popular period of embroidery in China history;

Secondly, in terms of embroidery techniques, the quality of general practical embroidery is generally improved, the materials are exquisite, and the skills are skillful, which tends to be different from the complicated and gorgeous fashion in Song Dynasty. Artistic embroidery inherits the excellent tradition of Song embroidery, and it can be innovated. Especially in the Ming Dynasty, the famous "Luxiangyuan" embroidery created by Gu Jia, Shanghai, combined with the invention of painting and embroidery, became popular. This sudden emergence of embroidery workers was widely respected by the society, and it was also the most prosperous in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

Third, other embroidery was derived. Embroidery was originally made of silk thread, but in the Ming Dynasty, some people began to try to use other materials, so there were through embroidery, hair embroidery, paper embroidery, tapestry embroidery, ribbon embroidery and plain gold embroidery, which greatly expanded the scope of embroidery art.

Embroidery in Ming Dynasty is the most novel and outstanding.

Sprinkler embroidery is based on two twisted yarns, and it is based on the hole embroidery of square hole yarn, with geometric patterns as the main pattern, or with velvet as the main flower.

Sprinkling embroidery is the predecessor of Naxian, which belongs to northern embroidery. Taking the embroidered women's coat of Jinlong Bai Zi Opera unearthed in Dingling as an example, it is composed of six stitches, such as three strands, wool, twisted thread, covered stem thread, peacock feather thread and flower clip thread, and 12 stitches. It is a fine embroidery in Ming Dynasty.

Shandong Lu embroidery, yi county embroidery and Jixian embroidery also belong to northern embroidery.

During the junior high school of Qing Dynasty, the country was prosperous and the people's lives were stable, and the embroidery technology was further developed and improved.

The image changes greatly, and it is highly realistic and decorative; Moreover, because it uses colors harmoniously and likes to use techniques such as lily and cushion embroidery, embroidery decoration has artistic effects of wide subject matter, vivid modeling, vivid image, unique brilliance, beauty and elegance, and calmness and solemnity.

It embodies the ingenuity and taste of designers and users, and embodies the rich connotation and artistic value of embroidery in Qing Dynasty.

There are two other outstanding achievements in Qing embroidery:

First of all, local embroidery schools have mushroomed. In addition to the "Four Famous Embroideries", Suzhou Embroidery, Guangdong Embroidery, Sichuan Embroidery and Hunan Embroidery, there are also Beijing Embroidery and Lu Embroidery, each with its own characteristics, which has formed a situation of competing for beauty.

Second, the late Qing dynasty absorbed the advantages of Japanese painting, and even incorporated western painting ideas into embroidery. The "Simulated Embroidery" initiated by Shen Shou in Suzhou, Jiangsu, has injected new blood and new features into traditional embroidery.

After liberation, people's life has just stabilized, and the pursuit of material and spirit is only to meet the most basic needs. The development trend of the country and the international situation are not optimistic.

The spirit of the times and the social situation partially solved the people's urgent need for the construction and development of food and clothing areas. Cultural and artistic creation has become the main goal of amateur life, and a large number of excellent embroidery works have emerged. The application and practice of embroidery stitch have also been greatly improved, and the innovation and maturity of embroidery technology have also reached a new level in history.

Although handicraft embroidery reached a new historical high in the early days of liberation, due to the limitation of national conditions and various conditions, the theme selection of all embroidery basically has distinct characteristics of the times, and the theme of works is limited to describing national construction, political figures or highlighting people's political life and spirit in the early days of liberation.

From 1966-1976, embroidery suffered another ten years of Cultural Revolution. The national economic construction has stopped, and the embroidery industry has stopped without exception. Innovation and creation are almost zero, and there are few new creations, which are still related to politics.

From the early liberation to the end of the Cultural Revolution, embroidery was another historical period.

These few preserved embroidery products with a single theme and superb skills should be regarded as a hot spot in embroidery collection with the passage of time. I believe that there is a lot of room for value improvement, and investors who are interested in embroidery collection can pay more attention to opportunities.