Embroidery: Ten Fingers Like a Spring Breeze

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China is home to silk and to a variety of arts related to silk, one of which is embroidery.

Most embroiderers are women, hence the byname for embroidery of,”women’s needlework.”

With a long history of several thousand years, embroidery has been a love of the Chinese people. It is applied to adorn clothes, quilts and pillowcases, or a piece of embroidery work can be an ornament in itself.

As early as in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), China officially established the Satin Academy and the Embroidery Academy, where a great number of weaving and embroidery professionals gathered together to promote the standards of silk weaving and embroidery. Dong Qichang(1555-1636),a famous Ming-dynasty(1368-1644) painter commented,”Song-dynasty embroidery boasts fine close stitches, done with one or two types of silk thread and hair-thin needles. Colors are deftly and intriguingly applied, making the whole piece splendid to look at.

The embroidered mountains, rivers, pagodas, figures, birds, and flowers are all vividly brought out.”He was said to have sighed in admiration,”The ten fingers must be like the spring breeze, producing such vivid pictures!”

China has four most famous types of embroidery-respectively from Suzhou, Guangdong, Hunan, and Sichuan-each with its own style and different themes. Historically, Suzhou embroidery was famous for its cats, Hunan embroidery for its tigers, Guangdong embroidery for its birds(the most famous being One Hundred Birds Worship the Phoenix), and Sichuan embroidery for its landscapes and human figures.

Among the four styles, Suzhou embroidery has enjoyed the greatest reputation. In the early 20th century, Portrait of an Italian Queen by the celebrated Suzhou embroiderer Shen Yunzhi(birth and death dates unknown) was presented to Italy as a state gift.

Suzhou embroidery is produced mainly in the Suzhou area, in addition to Yangzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou. Suzhou is abundant in silk, and people here and in the surrounding areas are known for their meticulous work style. For these two reasons, embroidery has developed quickly, with Suzhou embroidery gaining the reputation of “using needles to draw pictures with superb craft surpassing nature.”Over a period of nearly 1,000 years,a great number of Suzhou people have gone into embroidery and almost every girl grows up to be a capable embroiderer, hence the local saying “Every house raises silkworms, every home does embroidery.”It is said that a skillful embroiderer uses silk thread of more than 20 colors fora cat’s eyes, so as to achieve the effect of brightness and vitality.