Visiting Nantong Blue Printed Cloth

Obsessed with the "blue and white world"

In the age of material shortage, mention blue.

The handkerchief or headgear of a party's blue printed cloth can be seen as a token and a reflection of the object. When it comes to getting married, besides the red furniture, the most attractive thing is the blue printed cloth full of bedding, such as "the champion and the first" and "the carp jumping Dragon door". There are "Phoenix opera peony" on the quilt, with the magpie on the ledge on the ledge, there are "many lucky ones" on the waist skirt, "plum orchid bamboo chrysanthemum" on the pillowcase, there are "riches and honours" in the curtain, and "long life" on the cotton padded jacket, and "harmony and two immortals" on the tablecloth. It may arouse many people's memory: going out for a visit, wearing a blue printed cloth, looks respectable, and falling in love.

Each pattern is a symbol of the common people's beautiful ideals and sincere wishes.

"Blue printed cloth, also known as Su India."

Wu Yuanxin, the Nantong blue printing and dyeing technology inheritor and the director of the blue print Museum in Nantong, told the reporter, "it is made up of two colors, blue and white and mutually beneficial. It shows the beauty of jade and its unique charm with concise, bright pattern, delicate and simple knife method, elegant and implicit artistic conception."

Wu Yuanxin, a national art and craft artist in China's dyeing and printing industry, has devoted himself to the research, inheritance and innovation of blue calico technology, and founded the only blue print Museum in China.

He was recognized as a non-material cultural heritage successor by the state, and was praised by Premier of the State Council.

Wu Yuanxin's hometown is rich in a kind of bluegrass, which is a natural dye.

When the local knitted white cloth needs to be dyed, the hollow flower plate is spread on the white cloth, and the lime and soybean powder are used as a dyed agent. The scraper plate is used to scrape the dye agent into the gap of the pattern and print on the cloth surface. After drying, put it into the blue grass dyeing pot, dry and scrape the dyed agent, showing the blue and white pattern.

Blue printed cloth is made in this way.

Using blue calico to make all kinds of daily necessities, it was popular in the Tang Dynasty in China more than one thousand years ago.

Wu Yuanxin entered the local printing and dyeing factory after graduating from high school at the age of 17. From an ordinary dyeing and printing worker, he gradually began to learn the stereotypes and design patterns and become the backbone of the factory.

When he was 23 years old, he went to a professional school to learn textile and dyeing skills. He immersed himself in his study, and combined the experience he learned in the factory with the knowledge he saw in his book. He found a problem: no one has written the history and development books of blue printed cloth.

After graduation, the local tourist handicraft Research Institute invited Wu Yuanxin to be the director of the blue print calico Technology Research Office, specializing in the research and development of blue printed cloth technology, which is very suitable for Wu Yuanxin.

He ran around a network of blue calico craft talent, founded a small factory as a production and testing base.

He is still searching for precious ancient blue printed cloth preserved in ancient China. Starting from its patterns, colors, knives, cloth, handle and style, it studies its history, origin, craft, and humanities, aesthetics and practical value.

He held exhibitions not only in Nantong, but also in Shanghai, the United States and Europe, so that more people knew that the traditional Chinese cloth was blue and white, and it was very simple and elegant.

While expanding the influence of blue calico, while designing new patterns to cater to the aesthetic taste of modern people, Wu Yuanxin gradually recognized his products in the exhibition and began to order new blue print products.

Wu Yuanxin put the money he sold into the development of products and collection of folk treasures to maintain the operation of museums. As a result, his museum grew larger and larger, and more and more products were developed.

Salvage "blue print art"

Facing the ensuing honor, Wu Yuanxin was filled with emotion.

He said sincerely, "how should we go next? How can we make good the blue print cloth? How can this ancient folk art disappear in our generation during the pformation of farming civilization to industrial civilization?

With the rise of modern printing and dyeing industry, the trend of blue printed cloth, once a flourishing trend, will inevitably be marginalized or even disappeared.

In 2003, the state increased its efforts to rescue and protect the intangible cultural heritage, and the State Postal Administration issued a set of postcards for Wu Yuanxin.

Among them, 4 "lions ball", "phoenix play peony", "Shuanghe Cheng Xiang" and "longevity and longevity" are the treasures in Wu Yuan's new blue print house, and another 4 blue prints of the textile prints, twelve zodiac signs, painted pottery images, and galloping horses designed by Wu Yuanxin.

As Mr. Feng Jicai, chairman of the Chinese folk literature and Art Association, said, he had the honor of meeting a knowledgeable successor, Wu Yuanxin, who traveled all over the place to search for the remains, preserve the handicraft and live.

Wu Yuanxin said in an interview with reporters: "blue printed cloth is the creation of the daily life of the majority of the people in China and the United States. The blue print patterns left by the ancestors are scattered in various areas, which have not been rescued much more than we have rescued, and we still need to explore, sort out, rescue and protect them."

Now, Wu Yuanxin, who has entered the age of no doubt, has been working in the blue print world for more than 30 years. After years of study, collection, research, innovation and development, he has made every effort to carry forward and inherit the local characteristics of the blue print, so that the rich local blue print art has become the catcher of the blue print cotton garden.