Kesi became the "protagonist" of the costume drama, why is this intangible cultural heritage more expensive than gold

  The costume drama "The Mother of the House", which is being broadcast, brings together famous actors such as Jiang Qinqin, Zhang Huiwen, and Yang Rong, but the absolute "protagonist" of this drama is an intangible heritage technique-Kesi.

Intangible cultural heritage is not only an embellishment of the Tao of service, but also the main line of the whole play.

Suzhou, where the story takes place, has been the center of Chinese Kesi crafts since the Song Dynasty.

  The classic Kesi works that appear in the play include "Happy Eyebrows" (traditional auspicious patterns, ancient people used magpies as a symbol of good luck), "Wan Years Like Intention" (a catfish out of the water rushes into the sky, and the clouds are all in the shape of a wishful head) Wait-it can be seen that the ancients also loved homophonic stalks.

  In 2006, Suzhou Kesi weaving technology was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists; in 2009, Kesi was also selected as the Chinese sericulture silk weaving technique, and was selected as the representative list of human intangible cultural heritage announced by UNESCO.

  Silk is not unfamiliar to the audience, but what is Kesi, you may even need to think about how to pronounce "Ke" (pronounced "engraved").

And why the Kesi, known as "one inch of tapestry silk and one inch of gold", is so expensive? Why did it stir up the situation of the big Suzhou family? The secrets are hidden in the craftsmanship and history of the tapestry.

  The so-called Kesi, also known as "cut silk", the simplest description is "pass the warp and break the weft".

When weaving, the natural color silk is used as the warp and the colored silk is used as the weft. The weft of each color is woven with a plain weave according to the drawing with a small shuttle.

The biggest feature of Kesi is that the weft does not run through the entire web like ordinary fabrics, but only woven into the section that needs this color.

  Songren Zhuang Chuo specifically described the weaving process of the tapestry silk in "Chicken Ribs": "Dingzhou weaving and engraving silk does not require a big machine. The cooked colored silk is warped on the wooden frame, and the flowers and animals are made as desired. Small weaves are used. When weft, leave the place first, and garnish the warp and weft with variegated threads, and combine them into a text, if they are not connected. They can be viewed from the sky, like a carved image, so the name is carved. Like a woman's dress, it lasts forever But, although it is made of flowers, it can be made of different kinds, and the weft thread is not woven by the shuttle."

  Translated into modern Chinese, we can know:

  Loom-no need for a big machine: it is said that the workman must first sharpen his tools if he wants to do his job well, but the loom for weaving tapestry is the simplest horizontal plain weave loom, and it has not changed much since ancient times. Some auxiliary tools, such as picks, shuttles, bamboo hoops, etc.; raw material-cooked colored silk: raw silk becomes cooked silk after scouring and degumming; drawing style-whatever you want: tapestry silk is similar to embroidery, flowers and animals are omnipotent, you can Use small shuttles to weave any pattern; weft weaving-the core of weaving: because the tapestry does not pass through the shuttle, so when you encounter different colors, you don't weave it first, that is, "leave it in place", and then weave again.

  To sum up, why is it called "Kesi"?

Because the weft is woven back when it encounters different patterns and colors, the warp threads are not connected, so there are gaps between the warp threads at the edges of the pattern, and the light passing through it is like carving.

  The value of a commodity is determined by the necessary labor time of the society. Kesi is extremely time-consuming, and it takes a year to weave a garment for a woman.

The advantage is also obvious, the pattern of the tapestry can be whatever one wants, and it won't be repeated to weave a hundred flowers.

It is precisely because they can do whatever they want, Kesi has the ability to "copy" paintings.

In the drama "The Mother of the House", the heroine Shen Cuixi woven Ma Yuan's "Water Picture" and Cui Bai's "Xianzhi's Longevity Picture" with tapestry.

  The story background of "The Mother of the House" is in the Qing Dynasty, and the "Hundred Fortune", "Happy Birthday to the Immortals", "Hundred Birds and Phoenix" and so on that appeared in the play have prototypes of cultural relics.

Kesi, as a craft, appeared in China in the Tang Dynasty at the latest.

The tapestry of the Tang Dynasty was unearthed in Turpan, Xinjiang, Dunhuang of Gansu, and Dulan of Qinghai. The Tang Dynasty tapestry was also found in the Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan.

  The craftsmanship of Kesi is so complicated that it is only used to make clothes and daily necessities, which is too extravagant and overkill.

In the Song Dynasty, the pursuit of spiritual life, painting and calligraphy ushered in the golden age, and Kesi can "copy" calligraphy and painting-the two arts hit it off.

In Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the Lin'an and Susong areas of the Southern Song Dynasty, Kesi crafts and culture and art merged and developed into pure art.

  In the Song Dynasty, paintings of landscapes, flowers and birds, which represented natural scenery, gradually replaced religion and figure paintings and became the favorite subjects of the people at that time. The artist Song Huizong, who was delayed by the throne, was a master.

The tapestry artists try to reproduce these paintings with tapestry craftsmanship.

The "Square Axis of Flowers and Birds on Kesi Zhao Ji", which is based on the Song Huizong flower and bird paintings in the Palace Museum, is a representative work of this period.

  During the Southern Song Dynasty, the economic and cultural center was completely transferred to Jiangnan, where a large number of literati, painters, and arts and crafts were gathered.

Kesi is not lacking in technology and art. The ornamental Kesi based on calligraphy and painting has reached the highest peak.

"Xianchun Lin'an Zhi" mentioned the products of Lin'an (now Hangzhou), "the silk is engraved with two kinds of floral elements", which shows that Hangzhou Kesi has become a nationally famous specialty.

  During the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Kesi art continued to develop, and the center was still in the Susong area.

During the Longqing and Wanli years, the tapestry production was extremely prosperous. In the Dingling Tomb of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, 8 types and 29 tapestry objects were unearthed.

The center of the "Wu Men Painting School" of the Ming Dynasty was also in Suzhou. The paintings of Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying became the blueprints of Kesi artists.

  During the Kangxi and Qianlong Dynasties, political stability, economic prosperity, and arts and crafts flourished.

Qianlong, who loves to brush his presence everywhere, naturally would not let go of the tapestry.

According to statistics, the number of ornamental tapestry in the Qing Dynasty greatly increased, especially during the Qianlong period. The emperor's paintings and calligraphy works or works with inscriptions from predecessors accounted for a considerable proportion.

For example, there are 95 Kesi calligraphy pieces in the Qing Palace, 68 of which are Qianlong calligraphy or Lin; 38 of which are flowers, and 12 of them are Qianlong works or inscriptions of predecessors.

  In fact, the production of Kesi is directly related to the Kemao technology imported from the West since the Han Dynasty.

This craft came to China from far away Egypt and the Mesopotamia, across the mountains and rivers, and encountered silk, which gave birth to this new art.

And the road it traveled is the Silk Road that we later called.

  In Kesi, we have seen the blending and innovation of cultures, as well as the long history.

Today, we can see ancient tapestry relics in museums, and new tapestry works created by non-genetic inheritors in film and television dramas and shops.

Kesi is lucky, it still lives in the present; we are more fortunate, we can touch history and the future.

  China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Jiang Xiaobin Source: China Youth Daily