Miao Xiu's Artistic Value

The Artistic Value of Miao Xiu's Techniques

Miao Xiu's technique is unique, and its artistic value is immeasurable. In the last article, we have briefly described the differences between various technologies, so I won't repeat them here.

Artistic Miao Xiu Value of Patterns

Simple and free expression is the real "Tao, law and nature". The richness of Miao Xiu's decoration stems from its rich spiritual world. Decorations have their inheritance of tradition, their imitation of nature, and their over-time induction of beautiful things: everything comes from the same source (mother butterfly), and all beautiful things are accepted and recognized, so heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, water and everything in the world can draw the same picture and penetrate each other.

Miao people worship animals and plants related to their ancestors by totem worship, such as butterfly patterns, bird patterns, fish patterns, flowers and plants. Mother Butterfly is one of the ancestors in human legend, and the butterfly pattern is the most widely used and important decorative pattern in Miao Xiu. Miao Xiu's butterfly patterns are extremely rich, which are realistic, illusory, concrete and abstract. There are faces, bird feet, phoenix tails and flower wings. In addition to its irreplaceable decorative function, Mother Butterfly also protects her offspring. She is a visual presentation of Miao's religious culture and totem worship, and also represents Miao's philosophical thinking on the origin of the world.

Dragon is a symbol of Chinese culture, representing solemnity and authority, with strong hierarchy. There are many dragon patterns in Miao Xiu, but they have been created and rewritten unscrupulously, and freely depicted on skirts. Miaolong freely added cow head, phoenix head, snake body, fish body, bird body, insect foot and even various plants, so Miaolong had buffalo dragon, chicken head dragon, ichthyosaur, silkworm dragon, leaf flower, fishtail dragon, centipede dragon and human head dragon, which seemed to be common things in people's lives.

In this free and unrestrained thinking, Miao Xiu's patterns are rich and colorful. Dragon pattern, fish pattern, phoenix pattern, bird pattern, butterfly pattern, ox horn pattern, vortex pattern, geometric pattern and flower pattern are common and widely used, but the use of these patterns in Miao Xiu is extremely free and changeable, showing rich imagination.

The charm of Miao Xiu lies in its bold use of color. There are many records of Miao people's "good five-color clothes" in history books. They have no taboos in color matching. They use red to match green, purple to match green and purple to match black. These things that we usually think are vulgar are boldly used in Miao Xiu to achieve an exaggerated and harmonious effect. For example, embroidered pieces of Miao costumes in southeastern Guizhou are embroidered with crimson, orange and sky blue. Red is widely used in the theme pattern to form a large color block, and then the edges are filled with other colors, and then set off with a black background cloth. Make the whole picture very vivid and harmonious, with a strong sense of three-dimensional and layering.