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Suzhou
Embroidery - the most exquisite among four Chinese
embroidery styles
Suzhou embroidery has a
long history. It has been excavated in Auspicious Tower
and Mount Tiger Tower made in Northern Song in the Five
dynasties. The kind of Chinese embroidery was made in
rather professional ways, which is believed to be the
earliest by now. It is recorded that Suzhou embroidery was
very prosperous and the art reached perfection after Song
dynasty. Each family bred silkworms, made embroidery.
There appeared embroidery thread lanes, brocade mills,
embroidery flower streets, etc., in the city. That proved
the prosperity of Suzhou embroidery. Some lived by
embroidering. Daughters in rich families were engaged in
it as a way of killing time and molding their experiment.
That's how "popular embroidery", "boudoir
embroidery" and "palace embroidery" came
into being. Suzhou embroidery in Qing dynasty reached its
culmination.
Suzhou was called the "market of embroidery",
famous both at home and abroad. There were various ways of
knitting and they were applied widely. Mountains, rivers,
lakes, pavilions, flowers and birds, characters were all
embroidered. Suzhou embroidery was largely needed in the
palace. Therefore wonderful and magnificent embroidery
sprang up.
At the end of Qin dynasty and the beginning of Ming
dynasty, Songtao, an expert at Chinese embroidery,
renovated the traditional way of knitting. Flowers and
birds, characters embroidered in new ways, or endowed with
new meaning were very characteristic. The image of Lina,
the queen of Italy absorbed the theory of chiaroscuro.
Close attention was paid to the vividness of the images.
Such embroidery was called "art embroidery" or
"emulation embroidery". Songtao combined the
previous art and his own experience, classified the way of
knitting into 18 varieties, as recorded by Zhangsui in a
book. Thus the way of knitting was systematized. Her own
embroidery won several awards for the country in
International Fair.
The pieces of embroidery on characters, animals and
flowers, mountains and water are for appreciation. They
can also be made into pictures, book marks, a set of
hanging scrolls, etc. There are also the varieties of
embroidery: single-side embroidery, double-side embroidery
of different colors. Double-side embroidery, the specific
style of suzhou embroidery can be appreciated from both
sides. Pictures look exactly the same and wonderful on
both sides. Special ways are used in knitting instead of
knotting. There the end of silk threads are invisible. It
is knitted in the right angle without piercing the other
side. Both sides will present the same excellent effect.
The Nangjing Bridge, Xiangjun, the peony, the cat, the
goldfish are the masterpieces in double-side embroidery.
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