On April 26, when I walked into the house of Guo Qingsheng, a palace embroiderer in Taocheng District, Hengshui City, Hebei Province, I was greeted by a dazzling array of traditional palace embroidery works.
Traditional palace embroidery combines the artistic essence of various Chinese folk embroidery schools, and has distinctive features such as precise composition, beautiful colors, changeable stitches, and prominent themes.
Among these embroidery products, more than a dozen stitches such as flat needle embroidery, pan gold embroidery, pinching gold embroidery, nail needle embroidery, seed embroidery, set needle embroidery and split needle embroidery are used.
Making a piece of embroidery is divided into hand-painted pattern, finding base fabric, making embroidery stretch, drawing, wiring, dividing line, needle-drop embroidery and other steps.
Beijing embroidery is "gong embroidery", which is an ancient traditional embroidery craft of the Han nationality. The general name of embroidery products centered on Beijing can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty and reached its peak in the Liao Dynasty.
According to historical records, Liao set up a special embroidery institute in Yanjing at that time, and the "court embroidery" made was mainly used to enshrine the court's clothing for emperors and marquis.
Guo Qingsheng has devoted himself to research for more than 20 years, and has created works such as "Sketch of Phalaenopsis", "Colorful Cloud and Dragon Pattern" and "Double-sided Palace Fan".
(Cui Zhiping, Li Xinpeng, Lv Minghui, Liu Yinghan)
Responsible editor: [Luo Pan]