Gu embroidery

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Gu Xiu

Applicant: Songjiang District, Shanghai

Item No.: 316

Project No.: Ⅶ - 17

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Shanghai

Type: new item

Applicant: Songjiang District, Shanghai

Protection unit: Shanghai Songjiang District Cultural Center

About Gu Xiu:

Applicant: Songjiang District, Shanghai

Gu embroidery was created by the Miao family, the concubine of Gu Huihai, the son of Gu Mingshi, a Jinshi in Songjiang Prefecture in the 38th year of Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty. It is the only embroidery art school in Jiangnan named after its family. Han Ximeng, Gu mingshici's granddaughter-in-law, is good at painting. She has unique thinking in the use of needling and color, which greatly improves the artistic quality of this kind of embroidery. Gu embroidery is also called "painting embroidery".

According to the records of Songjiang County annals during the reign of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, "Gu embroidery, Doufang for flowers and birds, sachet for characters, and exquisite carving are unprecedented in other counties."

It has three main characteristics: first, half embroidering and half painting, which is good at complementing and borrowing colors; second, it uses strange materials; third, it uses intermediate colors to transform halo. Han Ximeng used this method of combining embroidery and painting to copy and embroider eight famous paintings of the song and Yuan Dynasties for several years. Dong Qichang, a representative of the Songjiang School of painting in the Ming Dynasty, highly praised Gu embroidery, saying that it was "exquisite and skillful, which can't be expected by peers It's strange that a man is skillful in the work of heaven. Han Ximeng founded the stage of "painting embroidery", which was the early stage of Gu embroidery development. Most of the embroidery products were family needlework, known as "Hanyuan embroidery", which was basically used for home collection or gift.

After Han Ximeng, Gu's family was in decline, and gradually relied on the embroidery of female dependents to make a living, and widely recruited female workers. From then on, Gu embroidery changed from family needlework to commercial embroidery. Gu Lanyu, Gu Mingshi's great granddaughter, was personally taught by Miao and Han, and passed on her skills. According to the records of Songjiang Prefecture in the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, Gu Lanyu "worked on needlework, set up a curtain to teach apprentices, and his female disciple Xian came to school. At that time, people also regarded it as Gu embroidery. Gu embroidery is known all over the world for its needling skills. In the reign of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty, Ding Pei of Songjiang was proficient in both embroidery and painting. He wrote the book of embroidery, which was written by Gu Xiu. "Later, those who imitated it were all called Gu embroidery, and the embroidery shops even ranked it as Gu embroidery. Almost all Su embroidery was named Gu embroidery." At the beginning of the 20th century, the Gu embroidery class of songyun women's vocational school appeared in Songjiang. Dai Mingjiao, an old man of nearly 90 years old, was once a student of this class. She is the representative inheritor of Gu embroidery in Songjiang for nearly half a century and has written the book "preliminary study of Gu embroidery needling".

Gu embroidery is the product of the combination of folk embroidery and literati painting. The practitioners must have the traditional calligraphy and painting cultivation. Because of this, it is difficult to popularize, and the production is time-consuming and labor-consuming. Since the 1950s, many Gu embroidery factories have been set up in Shanghai, but now they are basically closed. Under the influence of modern industry, a large number of Gu embroidery imitations poured into the market, forming an impact on Gu embroidery. Although the name of Gu embroidery is prosperous, the true meaning of "painting embroidery" can hardly be found in Shanghai. Therefore, measures must be taken to rescue, protect, sort out and excavate this traditional embroidery art.