Sichuan Brocade And Embroidery Pave The Road Of Splendid Embroidery; Treasures In Sichuan Show Cultural Confidence

Opening Ceremony of Sichuan Brocade and Embroidery

Pave the "Splendid Road" for athletes

At the opening ceremony of Chengdu Universiade, traditional Shu brocade looms, ribbons and other Shu brocade elements were unveiled one by one.

　　 "At the beginning, before entering the stadium, there was a textile girl from Chengdu who was weaving on the world's oldest Shu brocade loom in Chengdu. The silk thread in her hand gradually became a colorful line pulled out from the back of all the college students' planes coming to Chengdu. The silk thread gradually flowed from the big screen on the land of the square. After flowing, it magically became one This is a beautiful road of Shu brocade, so the athletes follow this beautiful road to their bright future. " Chen Weiya, the general director, said earlier in an interview with the media.

The guiding signs of Shu embroidery for athletes from various countries also reflect the cultural elements with Chinese characteristics. The frame is made of lacquer patterns, and the fabric is made of Shu brocade with sub golden back patterns. Ruyi patterns are embroidered on the four corners with Shu embroidery technology. The clockwork pattern and ruyi pattern are traditional Chinese craft patterns, implying good luck and longevity. The red "little pepper" dress worn by the guide also takes Shu brocade as the core design element. The pattern is taken from the Song Dynasty "lantern brocade" collected in Chengdu Shu Brocade and Embroidery Museum, and is partially embroidered with Shu embroidery technology.

In addition, the Chengdu Universiade medal ribbon also has the element of Shu brocade. It is worth mentioning that the design and manufacture of medal ribbons is that Hu Guangjun, the provincial representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage of Shu brocade weaving skills and the director of Chengdu Ancient Shu Brocade Research Institute, together with the design team, completed the delicate and complex pattern design on the ribbons with a width of 2.5 cm and a length of 105 cm, and produced them with Shu brocade technology.

▲ Chengdu Universiade medal ribbon

Inheritors of intangible cultural heritage:

Shu brocade and embroidery

Witness the exchange and mutual learning between Chinese culture and the world

　　 The appearance of Shu embroidery at the Chengdu Universiade was something that Hao Shuping, China's ambassador for promoting intangible textile heritage, did not expect. The signboard at the opening ceremony was made by the craftsman who has been in contact with Shu embroidery for more than 60 years, and led the team to make it needle by needle. "We are very excited, as a native Chengdu person, as a inheritor of Shu embroidery, to see that Shu embroidery with thousands of years of history is presented in a unique way at the Chengdu Universiade, which is the pride of our Shu embroidery people."

In 1959, Hao Shuping entered the Shu embroidery class of Chengdu Arts and Crafts School. Under the careful guidance of the teacher Fu, the teenage girl learned various stitches of Shu embroidery and became an employee of the former Chengdu Shu Embroidery Factory. Later, he became the factory director of the Shu Embroidery Factory in the 1980s, when he had been out of business for 17 years. Now 78 years old, Hao Shuping is the representative inheritor of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage project Shu embroidery.

Hao Shuping recalled that when she produced the first guide board last year, it took her and her three students, Sichuan arts and crafts master Chen Minghui, Shui Qin and Chengdu arts and crafts master He Gemei more than a month to complete the production. "The main characters are not easy to embroider. If the angle of the needle is slightly skewed, the characters will be skewed, so you have to cut them and start again."

▲ Hao Shuping, successor of Sichuan embroidery intangible cultural heritage and ambassador of China textile intangible cultural heritage promotion

Hao Shuping said that another difficulty is that the characters must have a three-dimensional sense. In addition to the basic skills, they also spent some time on production. For example, a word needs four colors of thread. In addition to considering different color combinations, Hao Shuping usually uses two colors of thread as the base when embroidering contours. In this way, the characters have a three-dimensional sense, with clear primary and secondary, just like carving.

Hu Guangjun, another provincial representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage and director of Chengdu Ancient Shu Brocade Research Institute, led the design and manufacture of medal ribbons for the Chengdu Universiade. Hu Guangjun and his design team completed the delicate and complex pattern design on the ribbon with a width of 2.5 cm and a length of 105 cm, and made it with Shu brocade technology.

▲ Hu Guangjun studies traditional Shu brocade techniques

From 1971 to Chengdu Shu Brocade Factory, Hu Guangjun has been engaged in this industry for more than 50 years. He is also one of the few people who master all processes of the whole weaving technology. Turning to the weaving elements of Shu brocade at the opening ceremony of the Chengdu Universiade, Hu Guangjun said happily that the design and production of Shu brocade must be inseparable from weaving. For example, the four loom models unearthed from Laoguanshan Han Tomb in Tianhui Town, Chengdu in 2013 are the earliest real looms of this kind found in China so far, filling the gap in the history of world textile science and technology, which is of great archaeological and research value.

"During the Han and Tang dynasties, the Shu brocade produced in Chengdu was already one of the main commodities circulating on the ancient Silk Road." Hu Guangjun said that the replicas of the Dunhuang documents returned by France to China clearly recorded the scenes of Western merchants soliciting customers and selling Shu brocade on the Silk Road during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

▲ Loom photography of Shu brocade flower building in Chengdu Museum Wang Qin

Shu brocade and embroidery, epitome of civilization exchange and mutual learning

Shu brocade, which has a history of more than 2000 years, flourished in the Han and Tang Dynasties. It, together with Nanjing's Yunjin, Suzhou's Song brocade and Guangxi's Zhuang brocade, is one of the four famous brocades in China. It is also one of the main commodities circulating on the ancient Silk Road, and is known as an important link for exchanges and mutual learning among the major civilizations of mankind.

Chengdu has been famous for Shu brocade since ancient times. In the Han Dynasty, a special agency for Shu brocade was set up in Chengdu under the management of "Jinguan", so Chengdu is also called "Jingcheng" or "Jinguan City". Du Fu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote the poem "Joy in the Rain on a Spring Night", which describes the beautiful scenery of Chengdu after the spring rain. "If you wield brocade cloth embroidery, you will see nothing." Yang Xiong of the Western Han Dynasty once described Shu embroidery in his Ode to the Capital of Shu.

Shu embroidery has a history of more than 3000 years, which can be traced back to the civilization of Sanxingdui. It is also as famous as Suzhou embroidery, Hunan embroidery and Guangdong embroidery, and is one of the four famous embroideries in China. Since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Shu Brocade and Shu Embroidery have been called "Treasures in Sichuan". They have become famous overseas through the Silk Road and become an important carrier for China to go global.

▲ The guide board for the Chinese delegation at the opening ceremony of the Chengdu Universiade embroidered by Hao Shuping

This time, Hu Guangjun, who witnessed the appearance of Shu Brocade and Shu Embroidery on the stage of Chengdu Universiade, sighed that a world-class event would let the world know and love Shu Brocade and its traditional arts

As one of the four famous brocades and embroideries in China, Shu brocade and Shu embroidery have been important commodities circulating on the ancient Silk Road since the Han and Tang Dynasties, and also an important carrier for exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese civilization and world civilization. The use of Shu brocade and embroidery elements in the opening ceremony fully reflects the respect of the main creative team for history and culture; At the same time, the elements of Chinese traditional culture, such as Jinsha, Sun Bird, Shu Brocade, and Shu Embroidery, have been endowed with new era connotation through this world-class event. It is this inheritance and development of history and culture that symbolizes the "beautiful road" of a better future for mankind.