Hunan embroidery
Hunan Embroidery
Dear friends:
Hello everyone! Welcome to the hometown of Hunan embroidery.
As is well known, China is one of the first countries in the world to produce and use textiles, and has long been known as the "Land of Silk." The vast regions of southern China have been rich in silk since ancient times, which promoted the development of embroidery and brocade craftsmanship. Embroidery, commonly known as "needlework," is a technique in which a needle and thread are used on already-processed fabric, with stitches made according to a design, and through the movement of the needle the threads are organized into various patterns and colors.
China is one of the first countries in the world to produce silk, and over its long history of development it created a splendid and glorious costume culture. Therefore, silk clothing occupies an important place in the treasure house of world costume culture and has been hailed by people around the world as the "Dynasty of Attire." In ancient times, dignitaries and nobles, in order to display their wealth and status, often liked to embroider various exquisite patterns on silk, using embroidery to decorate clothing, skirts, quilts, pillows, and other daily items, beautifying life and creating masterpieces of beauty. For example, the emperor's robe was embroidered with dragons, the empress's with phoenixes, civil officials' with cranes, and military officials' with tigers.
Embroidery is divided into multiple schools, and each school has developed its own distinct style. Su embroidery is known for its strong contrast between light and shade and its rich three-dimensionality; Shu embroidery features a wealth of stitch techniques and a strong contrast between thick and thin threads; Yue embroidery is famous for its diverse use of threads; and Xiang embroidery, over its long course of development, through the diligent creativity of generations of embroidery artists and the strong endorsement of many outstanding painters as well as imperial courts of successive dynasties, fully absorbed the magical and romantic artistic characteristics of Chu embroidery and Han embroidery, as well as the realistic style of the Song and Ming dynasties, gradually cultivating its own plain yet beautiful artistic style. Taking a painted draft as its blueprint, after the artistic re-creation by artisans who "use the needle as a brush, plain silk as paper, and threads to blend colors," it not only preserves the spirit and charm of the original painting's brushwork, but also achieves an artistic effect of "surpassing the original." Its most striking feature is that it gives full play to the expressive power of stitching, depicting the external form and inner essence of objects in meticulous detail, with brilliant colors, vivid images, rigorous composition, and a strong sense of texture, achieving the artistic effect of "grand and magnificent from afar, exquisitely superb up close."
Xiang embroidery, namely Hunan handmade embroidery, is an outstanding handicraft created by the people of Hunan. It was developed on the basis of Hunan folk embroidery while absorbing the strengths of multiple embroidery traditions, and it possesses exquisite craftsmanship and a unique artistic style. As early as more than 2,500 years ago during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, Xiang embroidery was already a favored tribute item of the feudal court. Judging from the dragon-and-phoenix patterned embroidered articles found in the Chu tombs of Changsha, they were embroidered on extremely fine silk with interlocking chain stitches, with neat stitches and fine workmanship, and the patterns were so lively and vivid that people marveled at them. The 17 large chests containing more than 150 pieces of various luxurious textiles unearthed from the Mawangdui Western Han tomb, including garments embroidered with exquisite dragons and phoenixes, flying swallows, strange beasts, auspicious clouds, and scrolling grasses, all full of a strong Chu-style shamanistic flavor, reflect to a certain extent that Xiang embroidery craftsmanship had already reached a fairly high level during the Western Han period.
By the Qing Dynasty, embroidery flourished in Hunan. According to the Tongzhi-era "Changsha County Gazetteer" of the Qing, "'In the provincial capital area,' many women were skilled in embroidery, and great families or prominent clans might even esteem one another with brocade and gold inlay." But at that time, embroidery was limited to being done for personal use. Apart from some "young ladies of distinguished families" in official and landlord households who used embroidery to pass the time and display luxury, most ordinary poor women were accustomed to using slack farming seasons or spare time after work to embroider practical and beautiful items to beautify their lives. By the late Qing, Hunan embroidery had spread throughout both urban and rural areas. Vivid scenes of "mothers passing it to daughters and neighbors teaching one another" in transmitting and learning the craft could be seen everywhere. Especially in the Changsha area, Xiang embroidery became a rural sideline for every household, and embroidery began to be used as a means of making a living. At this time, a woman named Hu Lianxian (1832–1899, a native of Xiangyin who was widowed in midlife), not only possessed outstanding embroidery skills but also opened a Wu Caixia Embroidery Workshop on Shangde Street in Changsha. This was the first embroidery workshop in the history of Xiang embroidery. Xiang embroidery, which had long been confined to the inner chambers, thus entered the market, and "Xiang embroidery" became a specialized term. Yang Shizhuo, a famous painter from Ningxiang, opened a school to teach the craft and established an embroidery workshop, transplanting the excellent traditions of Chinese painting onto embroidery and making Xiang embroidery refined and elegant. Some famous embroidery women, such as the divine needle Xiao Yongxia, Liu Mingu, Yang Peizhen, and Liao Jiahui, shone like stars, enabling Xiang embroidery to stand out among the four famous embroideries. Thereafter, Xiang embroidery continued to improve in technique and became a famous embroidered product known both at home and abroad. By the first half of the 20th century, the artistic level of Xiang embroidery had been further raised, its means of expression became richer and more delicate, and famous masters and works emerged continuously. Xiang embroidery's human figures were "absolutely lifelike"; and in freehand landscape, it was even more "colorful as hairpins and flowers, with traces of needle and thread extinguished." These "peerless needleworks" all came from the "divine hands" of Xiang embroidery artists, once causing a great sensation and winning praise from people at home and abroad. To this day, it has formed a uniquely charming art and is known together with Su embroidery, Shu embroidery, and Yue embroidery as one of China's four famous embroideries.
Early Xiang embroidery was based on Chinese painting, blended with the essence of Chinese culture—poetry, lyrics, calligraphy, seals, and dyeing—and then created by the nimble and ingenious Hunan women who split threads and flew their needles. The themes embodied in Xiang embroidery are vivid, lively, and true to life, with a strong sense of texture and bright colors. What it deliberately pursues is not the decorative effect of ordinary embroidery or the effect of photographic realism, but rather, according to the needs of different themes and images, the appropriate use of rich and varied stitching and embroidery methods to achieve an artistic effect of both form and spirit on the basis of realism. It emphasizes the integrated use of various craft factors such as stitching and embroidery methods, with contrast and unity, so the embroidered works possess diverse artistic characteristics. This earned Xiang embroidery the reputation that "embroidered flowers can give forth fragrance, embroidered birds can be heard singing, embroidered tigers can run, and embroidered people can convey spirit." China is world-famous for "silk," and Xiang embroidery, which threads needles and draws lines on silk, likewise spreads China's good name.
Xiang embroidery's stitching methods are exquisite. According to the different subjects in the painted draft, it adopts different stitches, and then matches them with silk floss threads of various colors in coarse, fine, deep, and light tones, vividly expressing all kinds of objects. It is especially suitable for expressing the fierce character and bearing of lions and tigers. The embroidery of the eyes of lions and tigers is even more delicate. For a single eye, eight or nine colors such as black, white, dark green, brown, blue, and yellow are used, with yellow as the main color, so that the shades blend, and by using the luster and reflection of silk threads, the eye's crystal is made transparent and sparkling, possessing both the spirit of painting's brush and ink and the unique expressive power of embroidery. Especially in the late 1980s, the new embroidery craft "double-sided completely different embroidery" was developed, raising Xiang embroidery art to a brand-new level and being called "super embroidery." "Yang Yuhuan," embroidered according to the poetic meaning of Bai Juyi's "Song of Everlasting Regret," is a representative work of "double-sided completely different embroidery." In a "Lion and Tiger" table screen embroidery, one side is an uphill tiger raising its head and roaring to the sky, while the other side is a downhill lion walking at night with lowered head. One up and one down, the tiger's head on the front turns into a lion's tail on the back, and the images on the two sides are totally different, astonishing to behold. Another example is the "Hua Mulan" embroidery screen made by Xiang embroidery artists using traditional stitching methods such as mixed stitching, plain stitching, and roaming stitching. It draws on famous lines from "Mulan Ci." On one side of the embroidery is the mighty image of Hua Mulan disguised as a man, clad entirely in iron armor, vividly embodying the poetic meaning of "traveling ten thousand miles to the war machine... cold light shines on the iron armor"; while on the other side is Hua Mulan's girlish charm after "taking off her wartime robe," dressed in women's clothing, "arranging her cloud-like hair by the window, applying cosmetics before the mirror." One side military attire, the other side feminine dress; the ingenuity of its conception and the superbness of its embroidery can be called peerlessly exquisite, making people slap the table in admiration. The two completely different pictures very concisely summarize the moving story of Hua Mulan disguising herself as a man, joining the army in place of her father, and returning in triumph, blending poetic sentiment and pictorial imagery into one, a perfect match that brings out the best in each other. Thereby, Xiang embroidery has reached an extremely high artistic level.
With a history of more than 2,000 years, Xiang embroidery is remembered not only for the traditions and styles of folk embroidery, but also for its charm on both domestic and international stages. In 1910, at the Nanyang Industrial Exposition, it was praised as "ink and brushwork merged without a trace" and "colors catching the flowers, stitches leaving no trace." In 1933, at the international exposition held in Chicago, USA, Xiang embroidery stole the show and returned with great honor. A half-length Xiang embroidery portrait of US President Roosevelt, submitted by the Jinhuali Embroidery Studio in Changsha, caused a sensation; the portrait is now housed in the Alexander Museum in Chicago. In a 1935 section on "embroidery" in the General Report of the West Lake Exposition, half of the text discussed Xiang embroidery. In the 1930s, the output value of Xiang embroidery reached as high as 800,000 silver dollars, and overseas sales accounted for one third of total sales, earning it the reputation that "Xiang embroidery is the finest under heaven." In the decades after liberation, Xiang embroidery made great strides and stood proudly among the "Four Famous Embroideries" with its unique style and superb craftsmanship, becoming an "artistic calling card" for Hunan and even the nation. Its highest annual export value reached 5 million US dollars. Xiang embroidery successively participated in international expositions held in Japan, Panama, the United States and other places, won awards of excellence many times, and enjoys a high reputation in the international market.
Indeed, with a history of more than 2,000 years, Xiang embroidery has gradually evolved into a famous embroidery craft system with a unique style. Behind every astonishing work of Xiang embroidery shines the extraordinary artistic wisdom of the people of Hunan. In the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Museum in Changsha, more than 1,200 fine pieces in the collection show the world the long history and incomparable superb skills of Xiang embroidery. The exhibits vividly recreate the evolution of Xiang embroidery craftsmanship and the distinctive embroidery styles of earlier generations of artisans, and visually introduce the course of Xiang embroidery's development as well as its exquisite contemporary inheritance and innovation. Among these outstanding works are both national treasures selected for Chinese arts and crafts and fine pieces presented as state gifts to foreign dignitaries and heads of state.
In the 1980s, under the leadership of important leading figures such as the famous artists Yang Yingxiu, Huang Cuifeng and Yu Zhenhui, Xiang embroidery, guided by the idea that "thought is greater than technique," once again added luster to its name with lifelike lions and tigers rendered in minute detail, marvelous double-sided embroidery, and double-sided embroidery with different designs on each side, reaching a peak of development. "Majestic Lion" and "Drinking Tiger," selected as national treasures in 1985 and permanently housed in the China Arts and Crafts Museum, were masterpieces of the arts and crafts master Liu Aiyun. In order to embroider the forms of lions and tigers realistically, she stayed in a zoo for a whole month, carefully observing the majestic power of lions and tigers and the lines of their bones and muscles, and adopted the pengmao needle embroidery method to express their forms. The so-called peng means loose hair; if the direction of the hair of lions and tigers in an embroidered piece can convey the effect of "peng," the work immediately acquires a sense of movement. In embroidering lions and tigers, in addition to correctly using the mane needle, a variety of needle methods must be used to render different parts. For example, the eyes, chest hair and edge hair require methods such as the rotating needle, down needle and hair needle respectively. For places where the colors are extremely rich and the changes very subtle, silk floss of various colors in different shades and thicknesses is used and built up layer by layer, so that through needlework and color the manes and hair of tigers and lions appear glossy, soft and brilliantly colored. To express the spirit of a tiger's eyes, she used more than 10 kinds of colored threads, among which the color gradations of each kind added up to as many as 25, and embroidered with the rotating needle method; by using the reflection of the silk threads, the tiger's eyes produced a sense of rotation. No matter where a person stood, the glaring tiger eyes followed closely and appeared fiercely intimidating. To create a fine work, she spent 15 years embroidering a single piece, which became a much-told tale.
In 1981, "Yang Yuhuan," praised as a "superb embroidery work," was sent abroad for exhibition as an exhibit of the "Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Traditional Technology." To express the thin silk skirt worn by Yang Yuhuan, rich and varied needle methods were used on transparent shark's fin silk: the coiled traveling needle for the hair, the pulling traveling needle for the curtains, and the cross needle for the carpet. A gauze garment, embroidered with the empty needle, was light, drifting and transparent, with a strong sense of texture. To delicately portray Yang Yuhuan's soft and beautiful face and her expression as if about to smile, the silk threads used were only one quarter the thickness of a hair. In the large double-sided embroidery screen "Tang People Playing Polo," four Tang horses were woven flat with 6 to 8 silk threads twisted together to form a large checkered texture, and then flat embroidery was used to create flowing outline lines. The simple and elegant decorative patterns had a very striking craft-decorative effect. This design moved a single literati painting style toward an open and grand decorative manner, providing full scope for the use of many decorative needle methods in embroidery.
Selected as a national treasure of arts and crafts in 1986, the Xiang embroidery double-sided embroidery with completely different designs on each side, "Gazing at the Moon," expresses the mood of Li Bai's famous poem "Grievance on the Jade Steps": "White dew forms on the jade steps; late at night it invades her silk stockings. She lets down the crystal curtain and gazes through its luster at the autumn moon." The artistic ingenuity and superb craftsmanship of the entire work achieve an almost perfect unity. In a break from tradition, the embroidery fabric used dark green Terylene, transparent, thin and especially misty in effect; the cool silken luster reflected by embroidery threads in many blue-green tones exactly conveys the mood of a deep autumn night with moonlight and white dew invading the jade steps. The door curtain, fastened directly on the embroidery surface at equal intervals with horizontal silk threads, is no less than a light, delicate, three-dimensional woven craftwork, and is all the more true to life. The ingenious use of these materials achieved effects difficult for any painting color or other craft material to attain. The work uses pulling traveling needles of varying density to embroider the figures' light gauze and thin silk and their shawls and broad sleeves, layered and interwoven; some are as many as four or five layers, each transparent, faintly revealing the figures' bodies and skin within the picture, exquisitely delicate. On the front and back of the figures' heads, one side shows black hair like a waterfall, while the other shows a flower-like face white as snow. Because the embroidery threads of this completely different double-sided embroidery are thinner than one quarter of the diameter of a hair, the thread ends are hidden on the other side of the work, and the thread segments are no longer than one fifth of a millimeter, becoming extremely tiny dots; black and white are embroidered layer upon layer with thousands of stitches and threads without revealing the slightest trace. In embroidery art it achieves the unity of embroidery and painting, with stitches leaving no trace, bringing the superb refinement of traditional embroidery art to a new peak, while also reducing the practical differences among the various embroidery types to a degree that only experts can distinguish.
In 1993, the large-scale Xiang embroidery work "Immortals Offering Birthday Congratulations" represented the culmination of Xiang embroidery art. This embroidery piece, with its lifelike and vivid figures, was based on the original work of the same name by the famous Qing Dynasty painter Ren Bonian. Composed of 12 connected panels, the entire work is 2.08 meters high and 8.8 meters long, making it the largest double-sided embroidery in Chinese embroidery history to date. This marked a new level of achievement for the Xiang embroidery art centered in Changsha. The large double-sided screen gift "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix · Spring in Dongting" received high praise and unanimous acclaim from Chinese and foreign guests at the Hong Kong handover ceremony, bringing asatisfactory conclusion to 20th-century Xiang embroidery art.
On February 22, 2002, as Bush was about to conclude his visit to China, Jiang Zemin personally presented to President and Mrs. Bush at his residence in Zhongnanhai an embroidered portrait titled "President Bush's Family Portrait," embodying Sino-American friendship. It was meticulously embroidered by more than 10 professional technicians over 110 days, consuming 15,600 work hours. The work captures both form and spirit: President Bush, his wife, and their two daughters smile and cluster affectionately together, radiating warmth and joy. The texture of the four figures' clothing and the color of their skin and hair are rendered very realistically and naturally. In particular, the faint crow's feet at the corners of President Bush's eyes were connected bit by bit using the Xiang embroidery "straight satin stitch," each dot only two or three silk threads thick, about 0.1 millimeters in diameter—exquisitely detailed and truly a masterpiece of skill. This was the second fine Xiang embroidery work presented as a national gift to an American president, following the embroidered portrait of President Roosevelt in 1933.
On the eve of the 52nd National Day, based on the oil painting of the same name by Dong Xiwen, "The Founding Ceremony" was meticulously embroidered by 8 embroiderers over 14 months. The embroidery panel is 201 centimeters long and 124 centimeters wide, depicting the grand occasion of the founding ceremony of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, when Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, and other Party and state leaders attended at the Tiananmen Rostrum in Beijing. The huge Xiang embroidery works "Yueyang Tower" and "Zhangjiajie," displayed in the Hunan Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, are elegant and magnificent, with extraordinary momentum. In particular, "Yueyang Tower" (a 205 cm × 425 cm double-sided embroidery) with its vast shimmering waters and radiant clouds, paired with Mao Zedong's powerful poem "Qin Yuan Chun · Changsha," fills one with expansive joy and surging pride. To present as a tribute for the 55th National Day, more than 80 designers and expert embroiderers spent 216 days and 170,000 work hours completing the huge Xiang embroidery "Chairman Mao and the Fifty-Six Ethnic Groups," currently the largest fine embroidery work in China. This piece, 7 meters long and 3 meters high, based on the oil painting of the same name by Hou Yimin, depicts the scene of Chairman Mao together with compatriots of 56 ethnic groups. There are 57 figures in the embroidery, men and women, old and young, with different appearances and skin tones, varied expressions, and diverse costumes. Chairman Mao walks at the very center, radiant and approachable, while people of all ethnic groups, dressed in brightly colored attire, beam with joy, embodying the spirit of great national unity. Looking at the entire embroidery, the portraits are natural and delicate, the colors brilliant and colorful, the stitches flexible and varied, and the momentum grand and profound. The greatest difficulty of this work was embroidering the faces, because traditional embroidered portraits use silk threads to refract light to make figures vivid and spirited, whereas oil painting figures have rich colors and cannot have reflections. Previously, embroidering oil paintings mainly used random stitch embroidery, which only looked good from a distance. This time, the embroidery broke through tradition, mainly using cross stitches, supplemented by random stitches, oblique stitches, and other stitches to embroider the facial texture of the figures. The work also had to represent the different clothing of the figures, including the Chairman's woolen coat, the Uyghur girl's silk dress, and the Tibetan woman's woolen robe. The work used 30 stitch systems, mainly cross stitches, with random stitches, knot stitches, net stitches, and others combined with varying thread thicknesses to express texture.
In addition, Xiang embroidery has boldly innovated, highlighting the characteristics of Huxiang culture and bringing Hunan customs into embroidery, creating a batch of high-quality and distinctive embroidery works. These include the double-sided completely different embroidery "Bathing Women" and "Beauties and Parrots," the three-dimensional embroidery "Goldfish" incorporating modern features, the ultra-realistic and exquisitely lifelike "The Fox and the Lion," and the fine-line painting embroidery "Morning Song in the Rainforest," created entirely with traditional techniques yet giving people an infinitely fresh and wondrous modern feeling. There are both exquisitely delicate small works and grand and magnificent monumental creations, a dazzling array that radiates brilliance, fully demonstrating the awe-inspiring overall technical level and innovative capacity of Xiang embroidery.
The double-sided completely different embroidery "Yueyang Tower · Stilted Houses" integrates the Yueyang Tower, representing Hunan's landscape customs, and the stilted houses of western Hunan into one work. The Yueyang Tower, magnificent amid blue waves and sail shadows, and the charmingly distinctive stilted houses amid graceful green mountains echo each other. Under the same outer form, the scenes with utterly different charms give people infinite reverie, and the complete incorporation of dozens of stitch techniques into the embroidery makes one marvel at the wonder of the embroidery art.
If the 60-centimeter "Yueyang Tower·Stilted Houses" still gives a sense of delicacy, then the 180 cm × 90 cm double-sided completely different embroidery "Zhangjiajie·Guilin" makes one feel its grandeur is strikingly different. The innovation of completely different embroidery in the art of embroidery lies in the exquisite craft of hidden needles and concealed threads. Displaying such exquisite hidden-needle and concealed-thread craftsmanship on a large-scale giant work is truly uncanny workmanship, astonishing to behold. The work captures the shared feature of Zhangjiajie's scenery and Guilin's landscape as both being "uncanny workmanship" in geomorphic modeling, blending Zhangjiajie's snow-covered clear skies with Guilin's autumn colors into one—fantastic peaks rising in emerald green, blue peaks ethereal and misty, some wrapped in silver, others ablaze with red leaves, leading viewers into a fascinating artistic conception. The giant double-sided completely different embroidery "The Fox and the Lion," measuring 189 cm × 93 cm, is another fine piece of Xiang embroidery, created by multiple Xiang embroidery artists over four years. Drawing on surrealist photographic and painterly techniques, the work vividly and exquisitely depicts the lively expressions of a litter of lions and a litter of foxes. The fur textures of the two different types of animals are rendered with remarkable fidelity by the Xiang embroidery's original stitch technique—the Pengmao needle—each with its own distinctive character, the two sides completely different yet seamlessly joined, demonstrating the skilled and superb craftsmanship of Xiang embroidery.
Modern three-dimensional embroidery is a new creation by Xiang embroidery artists, intentionally separating the embroidered surface from the background to create a sense of space. This three-dimensional embroidery titled "Goldfish" features six leisurely swimming goldfish embroidered on deep blue transparent jiaoxiao silk. Behind the jiaoxiao silk is directly lined with a fascinating surrealist photographic masterpiece. The embroidered surface and background merge into one, bringing the authentic feel of an underwater world, making one magically sense the undulation of water, the leisure of fish, and the elegance of water plants. The illuminated three-dimensional pictorial embroidery "Phoenix" uses a unique artistic conception to incorporate the beautiful small town of Fenghuang in western Hunan—rich in Huxiang characteristics and full of folk customs—into embroidery. On transparent jiaoxiao silk, various embroidery stitches are used to embroider the nearby riverside peaks, riverside pavilions, and river waters, while behind the jiaoxiao silk is directly lined with a fascinating painting depicting the distant Duocui Tower, stone arch bridge, and stilted houses. The work breaks with tradition, creatively using a sandwiched embroidery screen: the front shows the beautiful scenery of Fenghuang, the back provides a textual introduction to the small town of Fenghuang, and the middle layer contains four kinds of lighting—blue, yellow, white, and light green—respectively representing the shimmering water, house lamps, and night scenes in the darkness. The entire work's embroidered surface and background merge into one, bringing the authentic feel of a beautiful small town, making one magically sense the distinctive buildings, the rippling water, and the serene elegance of the town.
As everyone immerses themselves in the enjoyment of Xiang embroidery art, one cannot help but marvel at its artistic charm and naturally feel the urge to purchase. So, how should one choose when buying Xiang embroidery? Actually, it is quite simple—as long as you understand its production process, selecting Xiang embroidery is not difficult.
Drafting: This is the first process of Xiang embroidery; a good embroidery piece cannot be separated from a good composition. A skilled drafting artist can completely sketch the photograph, pattern, or even a living object before him onto a small piece of wax paper with pencil according to the designer's intent.
Tracing: The pencil sketch drawn on the wax paper must be pierced with a small needle as thin as a hair, following the fine lines of the embroidery draft, to create evenly spaced small holes. After completion, the already-cut genuine—a fine piece of Xiang embroidery, created by multiple Xiang embroidery artists over four years. Drawing on surrealist photographic and painterly techniques, the work vividly and exquisitely depicts the lively expressions of a litter of lions and a litter of foxes. The fur textures of the two different types of animals are rendered with remarkable fidelity by the Xiang embroidery's original stitch technique—the Pengmao needle—each with its own distinctive character, the two sides completely different yet seamlessly joined, demonstrating the skilled and superb craftsmanship of Xiang embroidery.
Modern three-dimensional embroidery is a new creation by Xiang embroidery artists, intentionally separating the embroidered piece from its background to create a sense of space. This three-dimensional embroidery, titled "Goldfish," features six leisurely, elegant goldfish embroidered on dark blue transparent shark's fin gauze. Behind the gauze is directly placed a surrealist photographic masterpiece full of fantastical variations. The embroidered surface and background blend seamlessly, bringing the authentic scene of an underwater world to life, allowing viewers to mysteriously sense the rippling of water, the leisure of the fish, and the graceful swaying of aquatic plants. The illuminated three-dimensional embroidered painting "Phoenix" uses a unique artistic concept to incorporate Fenghuang, a beautiful small town in western Hunan with rich Huxiang characteristics and full of folk customs, into embroidery. On transparent shark's fin gauze, various embroidery stitches are used to depict the nearby riverside peaks, riverside pavilions, and river waters, while behind the gauze is directly placed a fantastical painting showing the distant Duocui Tower, stone arch bridges, and stilted houses. The work breaks tradition by creatively using a sandwiched embroidery screen: the front shows the beautiful scenery of Fenghuang, the back features a textual introduction to the small town of Fenghuang, and the middle layer contains four kinds of lighting—blue, yellow, white, and light green—respectively representing the shimmering water, house lights, and night scenery in the darkness. The entire work's embroidered surface and background blend seamlessly, bringing the authentic scene of a beautiful small town to life, allowing viewers to mysteriously sense the uniqueness of the buildings, the shimmering of the water, and the elegance of the town.
When everyone is immersed in the enjoyment of Xiang embroidery art, they naturally cannot help but marvel at its artistic charm, and naturally feel the urge to purchase. So, how should one choose when buying Xiang embroidery? Actually, it is very simple—as long as you understand its production process, selecting Xiang embroidery is not difficult.
Drafting: This is the first process of Xiang embroidery. A good embroidered piece cannot be separated from a good composition. A skilled drafting artist can completely sketch the photos, patterns, or even a living object before them onto a small piece of wax paper according to the designer's intent.
Tracing: The sketch drawn on the wax paper must be pricked with a small needle as fine as a hair to create even small holes along the fine lines of the embroidery draft. After completion, the already-cut pure silk satin is placed beneath the paper draft to trace out each embroidery draft.
Color matching: Once the embroidery draft is ready, what remains is thread matching. Generally, multiple colors and nearly 2,000 hues are all matched by the colorist's eyes according to the designer's ideas to select the appropriate colors.
Mounting: Before embroidering, the fabric must be stretched tightly onto an embroidery frame, secured with pressure strips and tension cords. During the embroidery process, the frame may need to be changed several times depending on the requirements. Frames come in various sizes—large, medium, and small; tall and short; extra-large—and there are nearly 20 types of hand-held frames alone. Most embroidered pieces use medium-sized frames for mounting.
Embroidering: Embroidering is an extremely important part of the embroidery art. A fine embroidered piece is inseparable from a highly skilled Xiang embroidery artisan. Typically, a Xiang embroidery artisan must have more than ten years of embroidery experience to reach the level of producing fine works. With thousands of stitches and threads moving across the embroidery draft—inspecting threads, selecting threads, splitting silk, separating strands, threading needles, and cutting threads—every strand and every thread reveals profound craftsmanship.
Unmounting: Compared to embroidering, unmounting is relatively easier. The finished embroidered piece is carefully removed, and excess nap and loose threads are eliminated. The completed embroidery is loosened and taken off the frame. However, the entire process requires great care.
Pressing: After the embroidery is completed, it should be pressed and ironed. This is because at temperatures of over one hundred degrees Celsius, the embroidery threads can better reflect their texture and luster, filling the entire embroidered piece with dynamism and vitality.
Mounting and Framing: No piece of Xiang embroidery art can do without careful mounting and framing. This is also the final step in the embroidery process. Generally, the choice of mounting and frame for an embroidered piece should match the composition and colors of the embroidery.
Once you understand the craftsmanship, selecting Hunan embroidery becomes much easier. The most important thing when choosing Hunan embroidery is to look at the smoothness of its surface. If the stitching is relatively sparse, the smoothness will be insufficient. Good embroidery features dense stitching, giving the patterns a three-dimensional quality and a high degree of smoothness. At the same time, the thickness of the embroidery threads can also indicate quality. In Hunan embroidery, half the thickness of a thread is called "one rong," and one-twelfth is called "one si." "Splitting threads" means dividing a single embroidery thread into several strands. Hunan embroidery adapts its needlework flexibly and comprehensively according to different fabrics, colors, and subjects, and the threads are split to just the right thickness, fully expressing the texture of the objects depicted. For example, when embroidering a goldfish's tail, the threads must be fine and the stitches spaced loosely to convey a sense of lightness and transparency. When embroidering a cat, the direction of the fur must be controlled according to the patterns of fur variation, so that the embroidered cat looks fluffy and lifelike, while a roughly embroidered cat's fur would be as stiff and prickly as steel needles.
Hunan embroidery is an ancient art, but modern culture has given it new artistic connotations, making it even more colorful and diverse. Today, not only can traditional themes handed down through the ages be used to create embroidered works, but modern Hunan embroidery pieces can also be created to express the present and the future. Beauty is fleeting and soon forgotten, but once stitched into embroidery, it can preserve the years; it reflects beauty and lets it appear before your eyes every day. It turns out that what can express meaning is not only brush and ink, but also Hunan embroidery!