The embroidery origin of Han embroidery

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. Embroidery in the Warring States period is very exquisite. Embroidery in this period is all braided embroidery, also called braided embroidery and lock embroidery. Embroideries unearthed from Chu Tomb of Warring States Period in Mashan No.1 Silicon Factory, Jiangling County, Hubei Province include Duifeng, Duilong, Feng Fei, Longfeng and Tiger. They are all embroidered with braided rope, without painting or coloring, which shows that the embroidery technology has developed to a mature stage at this time. 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 embroidery is two pieces of embroidery 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 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 the artistic achievements of chu xiu. The embroidery handed down and unearthed in the Tang Dynasty is closely related to the religion and art of 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. When it came to silk embroidery in Song Dynasty, 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. 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.

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 the flower-and-bird embroidery, which is deeply loved by people. 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. 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 Embroidery Manual, which summarized China's 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 today, 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.