Weaving techniques of song brocade

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Song brocade weaving skills

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Item No.: 364

Project No.: VIII - 14

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Jiangsu Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Protected by: Suzhou Silk Museum

Brief introduction of song brocade weaving technology:

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Song brocade is a kind of brocade developed in Song Dynasty. It is mainly produced in Suzhou, so it is called "Suzhou song brocade".

Suzhou is a famous ancient Silk City in China. It is a beautiful town and a place of silk. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, Suzhou became the center of domestic silk production; in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Suzhou also had a famous weaving and weaving mansion, whose production and marketing of court weaving and folk silk weaving were booming, known as "half of the city in the northeast, thousands of households have machine sound".

The origin of Suzhou song brocade can be traced back to the spring and Autumn period. After the development of various times, the brocade art has been comprehensively improved in the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Suzhou set up the Academy. At this time, a new variety of Suzhou brocade, Suzhou song brocade, with exquisite texture and unique skills, appeared. It was not only used for robes and clothes, but also widely used for mounting calligraphy and painting scrolls. There were more than 40 kinds of brocade. Especially the application of mounting calligraphy and painting, so that these beautiful brocade and painting treasures can be preserved together. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the use of song brocade fabrics expanded, especially in the heyday of Kangxi and Qianlong (1662-1795). The "fairyland weaving axis" collected by the Palace Museum is the most important brocade produced in Suzhou during the Qianlong period, which can be called a rare treasure.

The song brocade produced in Suzhou has fine weavers and elegant artistic style. It has the traditional style and characteristics since the Song Dynasty. It is obviously different from the shiny brocade and damask popular in Yuan and Ming Dynasties. It is a brocade with both warp and weft showing flowers at the same time. It not only inherits the skills of the Jing brocade of the Qin and Han Dynasties, but also inherits the style of the Wei brocade of the Tang Dynasty. Song brocade can be divided into four categories: heavy brocade, fine brocade, box brocade and small brocade according to the structure of the fabric, the fineness of the craft, the quality of the materials used, the thickness of the fabric and the performance of the fabric.

There are many processes in the production of traditional song brocade, including more than 20 processes before and after reeling, dyeing and weaving. The basic feature of the product is that it adopts the weave structure of combined development of warp and weft, and applies the unique technique of color throwing and color changing, so as to enrich the surface color thread and weave level of the fabric. This technical feature was absorbed by later brocade, and has been spread to the contemporary brocade technology. In terms of artistic style, it takes the changing geometric shape as the skeleton, fills in natural flowers, auspicious and Ruyi patterns, and matches them with harmonious and contrasting colors to make them gorgeous, unsophisticated and elegant. Therefore, since Song Dynasty, song brocade has replaced Jing brocade in Qin and Han Dynasties and Wei brocade in Sui and Tang Dynasties, and flourished in song, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Song brocade is not only an important part of the excellent traditional silk culture of Suzhou, but also an outstanding representative work of traditional Chinese silk arts, with high historical and cultural value.

Due to the economic transformation and long-term neglect, the traditional song brocade handicraft workshop has stopped production, and the artists, tools and patterns have been seriously lost. It is urgent to take practical measures to restore and protect them.