The Flower-and-Bird World Weaved with Super Silk Skill
3 min readA roll of twill-weave silk was presented to the beauty for her sweet song，ye she still complained that the reward was too light.Can’t she know how hard the weavers worked，to make such a roll of silk？
（Northern Song dynasty）
The founding of the Khitan state Liao by its leader Yeli Abaoji to the north of China was almost simultaneous with the perdition of the Tang dynasty（907），after which Central Plain ushered into the period called the Five Dynasties and Ten States period in history.To the end of the era，Zhao Kuangyin，general of Later Zhou，the last dynasty of the Five Dynasties，took over the power and reunited China to establish the Northern Song dynasty.About one and a half century later，the Nuzhen people rose in the north.They overthrew Liao to establish the Jin dynasty，and overrode many of the Song territories，including its capital city Kaifeng.The prince Zhao Gou managed to flee southward，and established the Southern Song dynast with Hangzhou as his new capital city.China was mired in an extensive splitting state during all these centuries，but in terms of culture，the Northern and Southern Song took the lead.
The Song dynasty saw a faster development of science and technology in ancient China，highlighted by the mass application of gunpowder in firearms and compasses in seafaring，the spread of block printing，and great development of agriculture.These developments also provided favorable platforms for the improvement and popularity of silk producing technologies.By the Southern Song dynasty，as the capital was moved southward to Lin’an（present Hangzhou），the centre of national silk production also shifted to the middle and lower reaches of the Youngtze River.In the meantime，people of the Khitan and Nizhen regimes in the north were deeply fond of silk products from Central Plain.They not only managed to acquire silk through pillage of war and unfair treaties with the Song government，but also made effort to foster their own silk production.
In accordance to the political confrontation，silk art of the time alsomanifested two extremes.The Song silk featured lightness，plainness and naturalness，and preferred the use of floral and bird patterns，while that of the Liao displayed more features of the north.
1.The Flower-and-Bird World Weaved with Super Silk Skill Compared to the luxuriance and colorfulness of Tang silk，the most distinctive feature of Song silk lied in its naturalness and grace，which might derive from the political reality of the time:confronting with tough ethnic groups in the north，peace could only be obtained through hermitship in remote villages and indulgence i landscape，flowers and birds.
The flower-and-bird motif was not only favored by literati of Song，but their emperors as wel1.According to historical documents，more than 2，000 paintings of flowers and birds were collected in the Song court，on which over 200 different species were portrayed，such as peach blossom，peony，plum blossom，lotus，etc.The fashion of realistic presentation of flowers and birds exerted great influence on the development of silk art，which indeed became a world of flowers and birds.
In ancient Chinese art，the match of flowers and birds were usually fixed to imply particular meanings.For instance，peony was usually matched with phoenix，asthe”phoenix flying over peony”pattern was a symbol of wealth and nobleness，while the match between the three friends of winter（i.e.pine，bamboo and plum blossom）and wild goose was deeply favored by literati to express pursuit of grace and Flowers were not only arranged with birds, but with dragons, rabbits and children as we1l to express various good wishes. The pattern of children at play for instance, was usually arranged with pomegranate pattern to deliver the wish of prosperous offspring.
