Today we’ll talk about the Origin and Development of Chinese Embroidery.
Embroidery, also known as needlework, is referred to as “needle embroidery.” It involves using an embroidery needle to guide colored threads (silk, velvet, thread) according to a computer-aided embroidery design, and stitching on fabrics (silk, cloth) to form patterns or text with the embroidery traces. It is one of the ethnic traditional crafts of China. In ancient times, it was called “zhi” or “needle zhi.” Later, because embroidery was mostly done by women, it was also known as “women’s work.”
According to unearthed embroidery pieces from the Warring States and Han dynasties in Hubei and Hunan, the level was very high. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the embroidery was evenly stitched with rich colors, and it was popular to use embroidery for calligraphy, paintings, and accessories. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the scale of court embroidery workers in the feudal dynasty was very large, and folk embroidery also further developed, successively producing Suzhou embroidery, Guangdong embroidery, Hunan embroidery, and Sichuan embroidery, known as the “Four Great Embroideries.”
In addition, there are also Gu embroidery, Beijing embroidery, Ou embroidery, Lu embroidery, Fujian embroidery, Bian embroidery, Han embroidery, and Miao embroidery, each with its own style, which has been passed down to the present, enduring and ever-lasting. There are dozens of embroidery stitches such as even stitches, sleeve stitches, tied stitches, long and short stitches, knot stitches, flat gold, and sand poking, which are rich and colorful, each with its own characteristics. The uses of embroidery include daily wear, dance or opera costumes, tablecloths, pillowcases, cushions, and other daily necessities, as well as screens and wall hangings.
Origin of Chinese Embroidery
Chinese embroidery originated more than 3000 years ago. It is said that in ancient Suzhou, there was a clever and beautiful girl who was making a new dowry before getting married. In the process of making it, she accidentally poked a hole in the lapel. She cleverly used colored velvet to embroider a small flower, which not only covered the hole but also looked particularly beautiful, playing a role in adding icing on the cake. Inspired for the first time, the smart people of Suzhou have since liked to wear embroidered clothes.
According to the “Shuo Yuan” written by Liu Xiang in the Western Han Dynasty, as early as the Spring and Autumn period, the people of Wu had begun to apply the embroidery craft to beautify life. By the Three Kingdoms period, Suzhou embroidery had reached a higher level. It is said that Lady Zhao of the Three Kingdoms period used her own strengths in both painting and embroidery to make a “painting embroidery” for Sun Quan, which was called “needle unique” by people at the time, and Lady Zhao became the ancestor of “painting embroidery.”
The patterns of embroidery can be seen in the Book of Documents. During the time of Emperor Shun, there was already embroidery. The Eastern Zhou Dynasty had an official in charge of embroidery, and by the Han Dynasty, there was already court embroidery. During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan of the Wu Kingdom had Lady Zhao embroider a map of mountains, rivers, and military formations. In the first year of the Yongzheng era of the Tang Dynasty (AD 805), Lu Meiniang embroidered seven volumes of the Lotus Sutra on a foot of silk, and became famous for embroidery, which can be seen in the previous records. Since the Han Dynasty, embroidery has gradually become a unique skill in the boudoir, and famous embroidery artists have also occupied a place in the history of art.
Development History of Chinese Embroidery
The earliest existing embroidery is two pieces of embroidery unearthed from the Chu tombs in Changsha, Hunan during the Warring States period. Looking at its stitches, it is entirely embroidered with a braid stitch (i.e., lock stitch) on silk and gauze, with neat stitches, elegant color matching, smooth lines, and the patterns of dragons, phoenixes, fierce tigers, and auspicious animals are vividly and vividly displayed, fully showing the achievements of Chu embroidery art. Han Dynasty embroidery pieces have been unearthed in the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu, the Wulu Chong tomb in Hebei, the northern part of Inner Mongolia, and the Astana tombs in Turpan, Xinjiang. Especially in 1972, a large number of various and complete embroidery pieces were unearthed in Mawangdui in Changsha, which helps to understand the style of Han Dynasty embroidery.
From these embroidery pieces, the themes of Han Dynasty embroidery patterns are mostly wavy cloud patterns, soaring phoenixes, galloping divine beasts, and common ribbon patterns and geometric patterns in Han Dynasty mirrors. The new base materials used for embroidery are popular fabrics of the time, such as silk brocade woven with auspicious characters such as “May you live long and prosper your descendants” and “Longevity and brightness.” The technique mainly uses lock stitch to fill the pattern, with a dense composition, neat stitches, and very smooth lines.
From the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Northern Dynasties, silk fabrics unearthed in Dunhuang, Gansu, and Hotan, Bachu, Turpan, and other places in Xinjiang, the fragments of embroidery pieces seen, whether in pattern or blank space, are all embroidered with dense lock stitches, becoming a characteristic of full embroidery. The Tang Dynasty embroidery pieces handed down and unearthed are closely related to the religious art of the Tang Dynasty. There are many Tang Dynasty Buddha embroidery figures, such as the embroidery curtain of Lingjiao Mountain Sakyamuni preaching found in the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, which is collected by the British Museum, and the Sakyamuni preaching figure collected by the Nara National Museum in Japan, which are directly related to the prosperous belief in Buddhism at that time.
At this time, the embroidery technique still follows the Han Dynasty lock stitch, but the stitching has begun to change to use flat stitch as the main method, and uses a variety of different stitches and multi-colored threads. The materials used for embroidery are no longer limited to brocade silk and plain silk. The patterns used for embroidery are closely related to painting, and Tang Dynasty painting, in addition to Buddha figures, landscapes, flowers, and birds are gradually becoming popular. Therefore, Buddha figures, landscapes, pavilions, flowers, and birds have also become embroidery patterns, with lively compositions and bright colors. The use of fine flat embroidery stitches, with the use of various colored threads and stitching techniques, instead of painting with pigments, forms a special art and is also a unique style of Tang Dynasty embroidery. As for the use of gold and silver threads to outline the contours of the patterns, enhancing the three-dimensional sense of the objects, it can be regarded as an innovation of Tang Dynasty embroidery.
Embroidery before the Tang Dynasty was mostly for practical and decorative purposes, and the content of embroidery was related to the needs and customs of life. The embroidery of the Song Dynasty, in addition to practical items, was particularly committed to embroidery painting. Since the Jin and Tang dynasties, scholars and literati loved calligraphy and painting, and calligraphy and painting were the high artistic expressions of the time. By the Song Dynasty, it extended to silk embroidery, and the style of calligraphy and painting directly affected the style of embroidery. The embroidery paintings and paintings of all dynasties up to the Qing Dynasty should have an inseparable relationship.
The development of Song Dynasty embroidery was due to the encouragement and promotion of the court at that time. According to the “History of Song Dynasty · Official Records,” the palace’s embroidery institute was in charge of embroidery. During the Huizong period, a specialty of embroidery painting was also established, which classified embroidery painting into landscapes, pavilions, figures, and flowers and birds, thus famous embroiderers emerged in succession, making painting develop to a high realm, and from practical use to artistic appreciation, bringing calligraphy and painting into embroidery, forming a unique ornamental embroidery. In order to make the works reach the vivid artistic conception of calligraphy and painting, there must be a plan before embroidery, and the situation must be measured during embroidery, which tends to be exquisite.
The composition must be simplified, and the selection and omission of patterns and blank space are very important, which is completely different from the Tang Dynasty’s full embroidery with or without patterns. Dong Qichang’s “Junqing Xuan Secret Record” of the Ming Dynasty records: “The embroidery of the Song people, with fine needles and threads, uses only one or two silk threads, and the needles are as thin as hair, with exquisite and dazzling colors. The landscape has the interest of distance and closeness, the pavilion has the depth of the body, the figures have the vivid and lively feelings, and the flowers and birds have the graceful and charming posture. The better ones are even better than the paintings, and the three interests are all available, and the ten fingers of spring breeze, which is here.” This description roughly explains the characteristics of Song embroidery.
There are very few Yuan Dynasty embroidery pieces handed down, and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan has only one piece of work. From the work, it still inherits the style of the Song Dynasty. The Yuan people used slightly coarse velvet, and the stitches were not dense, which is not as exquisite as Song embroidery.
The dyeing and weaving technology of the Ming Dynasty began to flourish during the Xuande period. Embroidery originated in the Jiajing years in Shanghai at the Lu Xiang Garden, known for its embroidery legacy and producing many famous women artists. By the time of Gu Mingshi’s grandson, Gu Shouqian, and his wife Han Ximeng, they had a deep understanding of the six principles of painting and carried on the true transmission of the embroidery from the Tang and Song dynasties. They embroidered the calligraphy and paintings of famous people from ancient and modern times, split silk for color matching, and had their unique secrets, thus being able to dye into patterns. The landscapes, figures, flowers, and birds they embroidered were all exquisite, and the world called the Lu Xiang Garden Gu’s embroidery, which is the so-called painting embroidery. This is the famous Gu embroidery that has been handed down through the ages.
Gu embroidery’s needlework mainly inherits the complete embroidery techniques from the Song Dynasty and further varies and applies them, which can be said to be a great collection of embroidery techniques. The thread used is mainly flat thread, sometimes also twisted thread, with silk as thin as hair, and the stitches are flat. The variety of colored threads used is incomparable to Song embroidery. At the same time, intermediate color threads are used, with color borrowing and supplementary colors, and embroidery painting is used together, striving to be lifelike to the original manuscript. Depending on the needs of the pattern, materials can be used at will, not limited to established methods, and real grass, Siamese fighting chicken tail feathers, thin gold, and hair can all be embroidered to create a new meaning. Especially using hair embroidery to complete the production of paintings, which has never been seen in the history of dyeing and weaving, it can be seen that Gu embroidery has extremely ingenious and exquisite embroidery techniques.
Embroidery in the Qing Dynasty was mostly for the use of the imperial court, and most of the patterns were drawn by painters in the Ruyi Pavilion of the court’s office, which were approved and then sent to the three weaving workshops under the jurisdiction of Jiangnan Weaving to be embroidered according to the pattern, and the embroidery was extremely neat and exquisite. In addition to the court embroidery used by the imperial family, many local embroideries also appeared among the people, including famous ones such as Lu embroidery, Yue embroidery, Xiang embroidery, Beijing embroidery, Su embroidery, and Shu embroidery, each with its own local characteristics. The four local embroideries of Su, Shu, Yue, and Xiang were later called the “Four Great Embroideries,” among which Su embroidery was most famous. During the heyday of Su embroidery, there were many schools, and famous hands competed to show their work. Embroidery was widely used in daily life, leading to various changes in embroidery techniques, more exquisite embroidery work, and more ingenious thread color matching. The patterns made were mostly for celebration, longevity, and auspiciousness, especially the flower and bird embroideries, which were very popular with people, and famous embroidery masters emerged 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 gradually spread to the East, and Su embroidery appeared innovative works. During the Guangxu years, Yu Jue’s wife, Shen Yunzhi, was exquisite in embroidery and famous in the Suzhou embroidery world. When Shen was 30 years old, she celebrated the 70th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi with eight pieces of work called “Eight Immortals Celebrating Longevity,” and was awarded the words “Fu” and “Shou,” so she changed her name to Shen Shou. Shen’s embroidery used new ideas with old methods, showing light and color, using realism, and incorporating the characteristics of Western painting’s lifelike simulation into embroidery, creating a new “simulation embroidery,” also known as “art embroidery,” with various needlework and a rich sense of three-dimensionality.
Well-known Chinese Embroidery Techniques:
Shu embroidery (Originated in Sichuan Province)
Yue embroidery (Originated in Guangdong Province)
Su embroidery (Originated in Jiangsu Province)
Xiang embroidery (Originated in Hunan Province)
Computer Embroidery
With the development of computer technology, like gunpowder, papermaking, and the compass, computer embroidery has also been introduced to China from abroad in modern times. It is also being interpreted on the concept of traditional Chinese embroidery, using professional computer embroidery software for computer programming to design patterns and stitching order, ultimately achieving mass production of embroidery products. Computer embroidery not only perfectly inherits traditional hand embroidery but also solves the current situation where traditional hand embroidery cannot complete mass production.
I believe that with the development of technology and the integration of ancient craftsmanship, an increasing number and higher quality of embroidery techniques will serve our lives better.