Having been the first country in the world to cultivate silk worms and produce natural silk, China has enhanced this national trait with sophisticated art of silk embroidery. The craft is considered to be one of the China`s  intangible cultural heritage.

Chinese embroidery has a long history since Neolithic age dating back 5000~6000 years.

Historical documents record the use of embroidery in China as early as 2255 B.C.

In ancient China embroidered items were widely used for ranking social status. Emperors authorized using special motives, bird or animal images only for exclusive groups of officials, citizens, merchants, etc. With Chinese traditional passion for brightness and intricacy, embroidery decorated everything from armies and temples to theatres and bedrooms. Special s “popular embroidery”, “boudoir embroidery”, “palace embroidery” styles were in use.

Several major silk embroidery styles had been developed, like Song Jin (?? Song embroidery) in Suzhou, Yun Jin (?? Cloud embroidery) in Nanjing and Shu Jin (?? Shu embroidery) in Sichuan.

In Suzhou, the cradle of silk production and once the world`s largest silk producing centre,  almost every girl is a skilled in ?? (su xiu – Suzhou embroidery) since early years of age. But only few of them are able to challenge rigorous competitive selection to work at  the Suzhou-style Embroidery Institute. The candidates should be talented for drawing, have excellent taste, perfect colour sense and composition, gain profound knowledge of the Chinese and world art and be able to do many other things purely professional. The State  Suzhou Embroidery factory is an honourable place for be employed currently hiring 100 female and 1 male embroiderers. It`s a state funded enterprise to create real works of art. All masterpieces are the state property and used for “cultural diplomacy” as gifts for public figures.

Creation of a small painting usually takes about three months time lapse and the artists are  able to use more than 40 needlework and 1,000 different types of threads in their work. Small embroideries compose up to 80 different shades of colours while monumental canvases – up to thousands. Threads are painted by hand exclusively for every particular piece of embroidery and dyer and embroiderer often work in pairs to make the most appropriate colour tone. Sometimes even gauze or paper are embroidered in the fineness of the work.

The stitching is done with silk threads divided to the extent of invisibility. Thickness of a human hair is usual standard and silk yarn is split up to half, 1/12 or even 1/48 proportion of its original size.
Such embroidery requires a truly enormous patience and skills: final  opus may contain 30 layers of embroidery. In time it may lapse up to 8 years of  labour 5 hours per day in average. An artist can`t proceed to another project until completion of the work which have already been started.

There are about 70 different embroidering methods and several hundreds different coloured flosses. Among the most complicated and interesting are “double-layer” technique  and double-side embroidery.

Under double layer technique the original layer, such as forest (background) is embroidered on a heavy silk. The second layer, for example birds or flowers, is embroider on a transparent silk. Composed together both layers give a striking effect of depth and alive perspective.

Under two-sided embroidery, an epitome of Suzhou technique, sspecial knitting methods are used  instead of  traditional knotting to make the ends of silk threads invisible. The work is carried out at the right angle to the cloth surface without piercing the other side to create perfect images of similar or different motifs for both sides, particularly popular for Chinese screens.

Suzhou embroidery is considered to be the “pearl of oriental art” which has set millennium standards for other styles.  Nowadays  the best commercial product comes from four provinces: Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong.

Intricacy Edge

There are also many types of Chinese traditional art related to silk. Millenniums of history and skills inherited through generations still keep these crafts alive in China notwithstanding  modern IT designing and soulless production technologies. Considerable amount of household in the county still earn at least a portion of their incomes from traditional crafts to mention few as follow.
Kesi (?? or ?? kesi – relief silk)
Kesi is a peculiar silk fabric weaved in relief and colourful image pattern typical for China only. It distinguishes from conventional embroidery as manufacturing technique is somewhat similar to tapestry. Hand looms have got raw silk as a basis for multi-colour shuttle threads to “draw” pictures. A design pattern schematized on the basis first is to be weaved in picture by tiny stitches of colourful shuttles changed as often as only the scheme may allow. The completed fabric image looks equally elegant and gently on both sides. It is said kesi art is a merger of embroidery and painting.

Embroidery with human hair (?? faxiu)
This traditional Chinese craft is using human hair instead of  silk.  Since Chinese hair is naturally blue-black in colour, the technique is sometimes referred to as  ?? “moxiu” – “ink  embroidery”.

In old days  images,  embroidered in faxiu style,  traditionally used natural colours only. Very seldom, e.g. beautiful lips,  were to be completed using grey hair slightly dyed in pink to give them natural look. Nowadays this technique has leaped ahead in terms of colours and kinds of materials to be used. Colour palette is not limited solely to black – all shades of wheat, amber, auburn, white and gray are used to manufacture faxiu style embroideries; dozens of hair colour range are gathered mostly from ethnic minorities. Human hair is much more difficult to work with than any other thread. Natural hair of Chinese are hard, smooth, but very fragile, easily breaking under tension. Superfine skill is required to embroider in this style, but it is highly rewarding work: any finished masterpiece is perfectly elegant, resistant to damages or  insects.
Batik (? ? lazhan – wax dying)
Batic is stuffing a tissue patterns using wax. This folk craft is extremely popular among ethnic groups in southern Guizhou and neighbouring provinces. The process is quite simple: wax melted in a bowl is spread evenly by special copper knife on cotton fabric surface according to pattern. The cloth is then immersed in a container with indigo dyestuff to make uncoated surface blue. Dyeing boil, the wax coming off the fabric and leaves white pattern on blue background. The most popular patterns are of geometric designs,  though traditional flowers, birds, animals, insects and fish images are used as well. In the dyeing process the colour pigment may penetrate into the wax coat cracks to leave the finest blue web on the unpainted white surface. Even using one only pattern it`s impossible to get two identical fabrics, as each of them is uniquely charming out of the wax`s cracking sketch. Chinese ethnic minorities are widely using lanzhan for clothes and variety of  household items.
Silk flowers (? ? juanhua)
Juanhua – silk flowers artistically simulating natural bloom. Manufacturing process includes sophisticated starch stiffing, dyeing, twisting, gluing. The art is believed to originate from  inside imperial palaces and that`s why is often referred as ?? “gonghua” – “palace flowers” art boasting over 1500 years history roots.  Juanhua is commonly used in China for decoration purposes or elegant sign of personal affection.

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