The Development History of Chinese Embroidery

Embroidery, as a handicraft with a wide range of regions, has its own specialties and advantages in each country and nationality through long-term accumulation and development. In China, in addition to the four famous embroideries, namely, Suzhou embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Guangdong embroidery and Shu embroidery, there are also local famous embroideries such as Beijing embroidery, Lu embroidery, Bian embroidery, Ou embroidery, Hang embroidery, Han embroidery and Min embroidery, etc. China's ethnic minorities, such as Uygur, Yi, Dai, Buyei, Kazak, Yao, Miao, Tujia, Jingpo, Dong, Bai, Zhuang, Mongolia and Tibet, etc., have their own characteristics of ethnic embroideries as well.

The Four Famous Embroideries were formed in the middle of the nineteenth century, and in addition to its own artistic characteristics, another important reason for its emergence is the result of the commercialization of embroidery. Due to the market demand and embroidery origin of different, embroidery crafts as a commodity began to form their own local characteristics, of which four places Su, Shu, Guangdong, Hunan products are particularly wide sales, so there are four famous embroidery called.

China's embroidery "four famous embroidery"

Su embroidery, Suzhou is located in the south of the Yangtze River, the birthplace of Suzhou embroidery in Suzhou, Wu County area, adjacent to Taihu Lake, mild climate, silk production. Therefore, there have been women who are good at embroidery traditional habits. Superior geographical environment, gorgeous and rich brocade, colorful floral line, for the development of Su embroidery to create favorable conditions. In the process of long-term historical development, Su embroidery in the art of forming a beautiful pattern, color harmony, bright lines, stitch lively, fine embroidery of the local style, known as the "Pearl of the Orient".

From the point of view of appreciation, the main artistic characteristics of Suzhou embroidery works: landscapes can be divided into near and far the interest; pavilions with the body of the profound; figures can be viewed vividly; flowers and birds can be reported to the intimacy of the state. Su embroidery imitation painting embroidery, real embroidery and its realistic artistic effect is famous all over the world. In the embroidery technique, most of the embroidery is based on the set of needle, the embroidery threads are connected without showing the needle marks. Commonly used three or four different kinds of similar color thread or adjacent color matching, set embroidery out of the color effect of dyeing freely. At the same time, in the performance of the object is good to leave the "waterway", that is, in the object of the depth of the change, leaving a line of empty, so that the level is clear, the pattern outline is neat. Therefore, people in the evaluation of Suzhou embroidery is often "flat, Qi, fine, dense, uniform, smooth, and, light" eight words to summarize it.

After a long period of accumulation, Suzhou embroidery has developed into a complete variety of picture harvest, a complete art with many variations, involving decorative paintings (such as oil painting series, Chinese painting series, water town series, flower series, greeting card series, pigeon spectra series, vase series, etc.). The actual products involve clothing, handkerchiefs, scarves, greeting cards and so on.

Cantonese embroidery is the general name for embroidery in Guangdong. It is rumored that it was initially founded by the Li, an ethnic minority, and most of the previous embroiderers were men from Guangzhou and Chaozhou, which is rare in the world. There are mainly embroidery products such as clothing, hanging screen, pouch, screen heart, fan, fan set and so on. Artistically, Cantonese embroidery is dense and lively composition, colorful and eye-catching, simple needle application, thicker and looser embroidery threads, stitch lengths vary, needle pattern overlapping and slightly convex. Phoenix, peony, pine and crane, apes, deer, chickens and geese are often used as themes. Another type of Cantonese embroidery is another famous product is woven gold satin or nail gold lining, that is, the famous nail gold embroidery, especially lined with high floating cushion of gold velvet embroidery, it is brilliant, bold and thick, more used as costumes, stage furnishings and temple furnishings embroidery, suitable for rendering the atmosphere of the warmth of the festivities.

Shu embroidery, also known as "Sichuan embroidery", refers to Chengdu as the representative of Sichuan embroidery. The history of Shu embroidery is also very long, according to the Jin Dynasty Chang Qu "Huayang Guo Zhi" records, at that time, Shu embroidery has been very famous, and Shu embroidery and Shu brocade side by side, as a famous product of Shu. The purely ornamental products of Shu embroidery were relatively few, mostly daily necessities, and most of the materials were flowers, birds, insects and fishes, folk auspicious words and traditional decorations, etc., which were quite festive and embroidered on quilts, pillowcases, garments, shoes and painting screens. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, Shu Embroidery absorbed the strengths of Gu Embroidery and Su Embroidery on the basis of local traditional embroidery techniques, and became one of the most important commercial embroideries in China. Shu embroidery with a neat needle, flat and bright, clear silk, without adding a substitute pen, pattern edges as knife cut generally too neat, bright colors.

Xiang embroidery, the general name of embroidery products centered in Changsha, Hunan Province. The merchants in Changsha opened the "Gu Embroidery Shop" to satisfy a group of nouveau riche who had made their fortunes by suppressing the Taiping Army, and soon overpowered Gu Embroidery with the name of Hunan Embroidery. Hunan embroidery is characterized by the use of silk floss (no floss), which is actually floss treated in a solution to prevent hairiness, and is locally known as "fine wool embroidery". Hunan embroidery is also mostly based on national paintings, with vivid and realistic forms and bold styles, and was once known as "embroidering flowers to give birth to fragrance, embroidering birds to listen to sound, embroidering tigers to run, and embroiderers to convey the spirit of the gods". The color scheme of Hunan embroidery humanities paintings is characterized by shades of grey and black and white, which is as elegant as ink paintings; the colors of Hunan embroidery daily necessities are bright, and the patterns and ornaments are more decorative.

The late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China is a sad and sad era of the Chinese nation's disaster, the people are not happy, from the invasion of the great powers to the warlords, internal and external disasters, wars are constantly. In this case, embroidery and other national industry and commerce, suffered an unprecedented impact, nearly moribund. Until 1949 after the founding of new China, embroidery and other industries and businesses, as rapid recovery and development. Many places in order to maintain and promote the local characteristics of embroidery techniques, have set up the corresponding research institutions, allocated special funds to support the promotion of embroidery techniques to organize and research. In particular, many of the embroidery techniques lost to the public have been systematically developed and utilized, resulting in a much richer content of embroidery stitches, more beautiful embroidery, and a wider variety of products. In particular, on the basis of "double-sided embroidery", the company has developed and researched "double-sided all different embroidery", that is to say, embroidery on the same fabric on the front and back can be embroidered on the picture, stitching, color embroidery is completely different, so that the world repeatedly marveled: "it can be called the world masterpiece". The world has marveled: "This is the world's best skill".

Embroidery, also known as "needle embroidery", commonly known as "embroidery". Embroidery needle to attract colorful thread (silk, velvet, thread), according to the design of the pattern, in the fabric (silk, cloth and silk) on the embroidery embellishments to transport the needle, embroidery to form patterns or text, is one of China's outstanding national traditional crafts. In ancient times, it was called "embroidery" or "needlework". Later, because embroidery was mostly done by women, it was also called "women's red". According to the Shangshu (Book of Songs), more than 4,000 years ago, the Zhangfu system stipulated that "clothes were painted and embroidered". To the Zhou Dynasty, there are "embroidery multi-color **** job" records. Hubei and Hunan excavations of the Warring States, the two Han Dynasty embroidery, the level is very high. Tang and Song Dynasty embroidery needle even fine, colorful, prevalent with embroidery for painting and calligraphy, ornaments, etc.. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the scale of embroidery in the feudal court was very large, and folk embroidery was also further developed, which successively produced Suzhou Embroidery, Guangdong Embroidery, Hunan Embroidery, and Shu Embroidery, known as the "Four Famous Embroideries". In addition, there are Gu embroidery, Beijing embroidery, Ou embroidery, Lu embroidery, Min embroidery, Bian embroidery, Han embroidery and Miao embroidery, etc., which have their own styles and have been passed down till now. Embroidery needlework: Qi needle, sets of needles, needle, long and short needles, playing the child needle, flat gold, poke sand and so on dozens of kinds of colorful, each with its own characteristics.