What are the four famous embroideries in ancient China?

The four famous embroideries refer to Suzhou embroidery, Hunan Hunan embroidery, Guangdong Yue embroidery and Sichuan Shu embroidery. Embroidery is a general term for various decorative patterns embroidered on fabric by needle and thread. Embroidery is divided into two types: silk embroidery and feather embroidery.

The four famous embroideries refer to Su embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Cantonese embroidery and Shu embroidery in traditional embroidery techniques. Embroidery is a decorative fabric that uses needles to pierce silk threads or other fibers and yarns into embroidery materials with certain patterns and colors to form patterns with embroidery traces. It is the art of using needle and thread to add human design and craftsmanship to any existing fabric. Su embroidery has a history of more than 2,000 years. Suzhou embroidery has been famous for its fineness and elegance since ancient times. It has concise composition, prominent themes and exquisite skills. Just taking the thinnest thread used in Su embroidery, which can be seen clearly by ordinary people's naked eyes, as an example, it shows how delicate it is.

Hunan embroidery was developed by absorbing the advantages of Suzhou embroidery and other embroideries. Hunan embroidery uses threads of different colors to blend with each other and gradually change. The colors are rich and full, and the tones are harmonious. The patterns of Hunan embroidery draw on the strengths of Chinese paintings, and the embroidered contents are mostly landscapes, figures, animals, etc., especially the lion and tiger themes of Hunan embroidery, which are lifelike and lifelike.

The composition of Cantonese embroidery is full, complex but not chaotic, highly decorative, rich and bright in color, and the embroidery is smooth and smooth... Cantonese embroidery has a wide range of themes, mostly with patterns such as birds rising to the sun, dragons and phoenixes.

Shu embroidery uses soft satin and colored silk as the main raw materials, and has more than 100 stitches. It gives full play to the advantages of hand embroidery and has a strong local style. The themes of Shu embroidery are mostly flowers, birds, animals, insects, fish, and people. In addition to embroidered screens, there are also quilt covers, pillowcases, cushions, tablecloths, headscarves, etc.

Su embroidery

Su embroidery is the general name for embroidery products in the Jiangsu region, centered on Suzhou, Jiangsu. Legend has it that Zhongyong's granddaughter "Nu Hong" first made embroidered clothes. In ancient times, people in the Jiangnan area had the custom of tattooing dragons on their bodies. Zhongyong wanted to get rid of this bad habit, and his granddaughter Nvhong invented the idea of ??embroidering dragon patterns on clothes as an alternative to tattoos. In order to commemorate the inventor of embroidery, people still refer to women engaged in textile, sewing, embroidery and other activities as "Nvhong".

Suzhou is located in the south of the Yangtze River. The birthplace of Suzhou embroidery is in the Wuxian area of ??Suzhou. It is adjacent to Taihu Lake, has a mild climate and is rich in silk. Therefore, there is a traditional habit of women being good at embroidery. The superior geographical environment, gorgeous and rich brocades, and colorful flower threads have created favorable conditions for the development of Su embroidery. In the long-term historical development process, Suzhou embroidery has artistically formed a local style with beautiful patterns, harmonious colors, bright lines, lively stitching and fine embroidery work, and is known as the "Pearl of the Orient".

Characteristics

From an appreciation point of view, the main artistic features of Su embroidery works are: the landscape can distinguish the near and far; the pavilions can reflect the profound body; the characters can have a vivid perspective. Love; flowers and birds can reciprocate the intimacy. Su embroidery's imitation painting embroidery and photo embroidery are famous all over the world for their realistic artistic effects.

In terms of embroidery techniques, Su embroidery mostly uses trocars, and the embroidery threads are covered without revealing the stitches. Three or four different threads of the same color or adjacent colors are often used to match each other to create a seamless color effect. At the same time, when expressing objects, it is good to leave "water paths", that is, in the changes in the depth of objects, leave an empty line to make them clear in layers and neat in outline. Therefore, when people evaluate Su embroidery, they often summarize it with eight words: "flat, even, fine, dense, even, smooth, harmonious, and light".

After long-term accumulation, Su embroidery has developed into a complete art with a complete range of varieties, rich pictures, and varied changes, involving decorative paintings (such as oil painting series, traditional Chinese painting series, water town series, flower series, greeting card series , pigeon series, vase series, etc.). Practical items include clothing, handkerchiefs, scarves, greeting cards, etc.

Guangdong embroidery

Guangdong embroidery, Guangdong embroidery (Guangdong embroidery) is the general name for Guangdong embroidery and Chaozhou embroidery. With Guangzhou and Chaozhou cities in Guangdong Province as the production centers, it has a thousand Years of history.

Long history

The history of Guangzhou embroidery that can be verified by documents is in the Tang Dynasty. Su E of the Tang Dynasty recorded in "Du Yang Zabian" that a 14-year-old girl named Lu Meiniang from Nanhai died in the palace. Seven volumes of the Lotus Sutra are embroidered on a foot of silk. The characters are like millet grains and the stipples are clear and as fine as hair.

Guangzhou embroidery works have a unique characteristic. They are very eye-catching when viewed from a distance, and very delicate when viewed up close. Because the patterns are in the style of Western oil paintings, embroidery workers increased the types of embroidery threads and reformed the embroidery methods to enrich the expressiveness of the embroidery and further improve the Guangzhou embroidery skills. For example, peacock feathers are twisted into threads, horsetail velvet is used as threads, etc.

Features

In addition to using rich and varied stitching methods, Cantonese embroidery also pays attention to ideas in creative design, and is good at integrating auspiciousness and good wishes into embroidery. In terms of creative methods, he adopts a method that is derived from life but values ??tradition. He is not satisfied with the depiction of reality and pursues better ideals. At the same time, he is also good at drawing on the strengths of various art forms such as painting and folk paper-cutting, so that The composition of the embroidery is full, complex but not chaotic, the stitches are even, bright and smooth, the texture is clear and distinct, the objects, images, and spirits are both lifelike and lifelike, fully embodying the local style and artistic characteristics of Cantonese embroidery.

Tide embroidery

"Tide embroidery" has more than 60 gold nail stitches and more than 40 velvet embroidery stitches. At the same time, artists also use fold embroidery, insert embroidery, gold and silver Various techniques such as outlining and brown silk outlining make "tide embroidery" more perfect in techniques such as "embroidering, nailing, padding, pasting, piecing, and embellishment" to produce an artistic effect of "flat, floating, sudden, and lively"

1. There are varieties of velvet embroidery, nail gold embroidery, gold velvet mixed embroidery, thread embroidery, etc., each with its own characteristics.

2. Nail gold embroidery and gold velvet mixed embroidery. Nail gold embroidery, also known as gold and silver embroidery; gold and silver thread as the main component, supplemented by wool thread, is called gold and cashmere mixed embroidery. The stitching techniques of nail gold embroidery are complex, including more than 60 stitching techniques such as bridge crossing, step stitching, petal fishing, padding, concave stitching, and accumulated hook embroidery. Among them, the "two needles and scales" stitching method is unique to other embroidery types. Nail gold embroidery uses techniques such as padding, embroidery, pasting, spelling, and embellishment to produce a relief-like artistic effect.

3. Thread embroidery. Purely flat embroidered with silk thread.

Guang Embroidery

The stitching methods of "Guang Embroidery" mainly include 7 categories and more than 30 kinds, including straight twist stitch, binding stitch, continuous insertion stitch, auxiliary stitch, and knitting stitch. , Rao embroidery, variation embroidery, etc., as well as more than 10 stitches in 6 categories including flat embroidery, brocade embroidery, Rao embroidery, convex embroidery and appliqué embroidery in Guangzhou nail gold embroidery.

Guangzhou embroidery has a variety of stitches, even stitch steps, and clever use of stitches to express the texture of objects. It has a wide range of themes, rich colors, and pays attention to the harmonious use of light and shadow; it pays attention to the stitching techniques of embroidery. , paying more attention to the artistic effect of embroidery, and emphasizing the use of "gong" for "art". Guangzhou embroidery has a complete range of varieties. According to the embroidery materials, it mainly includes four categories: silk velvet embroidery, gold and silver thread embroidery, thread embroidery and bead embroidery.

Guangzhou embroidery has a variety of stitches, even stitch steps, and clever use of stitches to express the texture of objects. It has a wide range of themes, rich colors, and pays attention to the harmonious use of light and shadow; it pays attention to the stitching techniques of embroidery. , paying more attention to the artistic effect of embroidery, and emphasizing the use of "gong" for "art". Guangzhou embroidery has a complete range of varieties. According to the embroidery materials, it mainly includes four categories: silk velvet embroidery, gold and silver thread embroidery, thread embroidery and bead embroidery.

Shu embroidery

Shu embroidery, also known as "Sichuan embroidery", is the general name for Sichuan embroidery products centered in Chengdu. Shu embroidery also has a long history. According to records in "Huayang Guozhi" by Chang Xu of the Jin Dynasty, embroidery in Shu was already very famous at that time, and Shu embroidery was regarded as a famous local product of Shu, along with Shu brocade. There are relatively few purely ornamental items in Shu embroidery, mostly daily necessities. Most of the materials used in Shu embroidery are flowers, birds, insects, fish, folk auspicious sayings and traditional patterns. They are quite festive and are embroidered on quilts, pillowcases, clothes, shoes and screens. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, Shu embroidery absorbed the advantages of Gu embroidery and Su embroidery based on local traditional embroidery techniques, and became one of the important commercial embroideries. The needles used in Shu embroidery are neat, smooth and bright, the silk paths are clear, and no ghostwriting is used. The edges of the patterns are as neat as knife cuts, and the colors are bright.

Characteristics

Shu embroidery originated from the folk in western Sichuan. In the long-term development process, due to the influence of geographical environment, customs, culture and art, etc., it gradually formed a rigorous, delicate, and bright style. A unique style that is flat, clear in composition, rich and round, and bright in color.

Shu embroidery works have a rich selection of materials, including flowers, trees, birds and animals, landscapes, fish and insects, portraits, etc. Acupuncture methods include 12 categories and 122 types. Commonly used acupuncture methods include halo stitch, spread stitch, rolling stitch, cut stitch, mixed stitch, yarn stitch, covering stitch, etc. The emphasis is on "neat stitches, bright threads, tight and soft , the car is screwed home."

There are many kinds of embroidery, including quilts, pillowcases, clothes, shoes and screens, etc. There are both huge banners and small pieces. They are exquisite works of art that are both ornamental and practical. . Today's embroidery products include both large-format banners and small pocket-sized pieces; there are both high-end appreciation products and ordinary daily consumer goods.

Hunan embroidery

Hunan embroidery is the general name for embroidery products centered in Changsha, Hunan. The characteristic of Hunan embroidery is that it uses velvet thread (no velvet thread) to embroider. In fact, the velvet is treated in a solution to prevent fluffing. This kind of embroidery is locally called "wool fine embroidery". Hunan embroidery also mostly uses traditional Chinese painting as its theme, with vivid and realistic forms and bold styles. It once had the reputation of "embroidering peanuts smells fragrant, embroidering birds can listen, embroidering tigers can run, and embroidering people can express emotions". The color matching characteristics of Hunan embroidery humanistic paintings are mainly dark and light gray and black and white, which are as elegant as ink paintings; the colors of Hunan embroidery daily necessities are bright, and the patterns and patterns are highly decorative.

Features

Hunan embroidery is mainly made of pure silk, hard satin, soft satin, transparent yarn and silk threads and wool threads of various colors. Its characteristics are: rigorous composition, bright colors, and various stitches are expressive. Through rich color threads and ever-changing stitches, the embroidered figures, animals, landscapes, flowers and birds, etc. have special artistic effects. In Hunan embroidery, regardless of flat embroidery, weaving embroidery, net embroidery, knot embroidery, knot embroidery, velvet embroidery, three-dimensional embroidery, double-sided embroidery, random stitch embroidery, etc., all focus on depicting the appearance and inner quality of objects. The scales, claws, petals and leaves are all meticulous. Judging from the embroidery unearthed from the Chu tomb in Changsha in 1958, local embroidery in Hunan had already developed to a certain extent as early as the Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,500 years ago. In 1972, forty pieces of embroidered clothing were unearthed from the Western Han Dynasty tombs in Mawangdui, Changsha, indicating that Hunan's local embroidery had developed to a high level in the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,100 years ago. Since then, in the long process of development, a simple and beautiful artistic style has gradually been cultivated.

With the development of Hunan embroidery commodity production, through the hard work of embroidery artists and the participation of some outstanding painters in the reform and improvement of Hunan embroidery techniques, many fine traditions of Chinese painting have been transplanted into embroidery, skillfully integrating our country's traditional The various arts of painting, embroidery, poetry, calligraphy, and epigraphy are integrated into one, thus forming Hunan embroidery. Based on Chinese painting, it uses more than 70 kinds of stitches and more than 100 colors of embroidery threads to give full play to the expressive power of the stitches. , meticulously depict the characteristics of the appearance and inner quality of the object. The embroidery image is vivid and lifelike, with bright colors, strong texture, both form and spirit, and bold style. There was once a saying that "embroidered peanuts smell fragrant, embroidered birds can hear, embroidered tigers can run, It has the reputation of "embroidering people can convey spirit".