Life of Guangzhou - Guangdong Embroidery

Xu Chiguang, master of Guang (Canton) Embroidery in Guangzhou. (Nanfang Daily)

In the 9th year of the reign of Emperor Zhengde of Ming Dynasty (1514), a Portuguese merchant purchased in Guangzhou a piece of imperial robe embroidery. He brought it home despite the long distance and dedicated the exquisite robe with superb craftwork to the king who, gasping in admiration, rewarded him generously in return. Since then, Guang Embroidery began to shine on world stage, winning its international fame 500 years ago featuring full composition, luxuriant patterns, grant scenes as well as rich and strong contrasting colors.

Embroidery belongs to one of China's exquisite traditional craftworks and enjoys a history of more than 2000 years. Embroidery made in the Pearl River Delta around Guangzhou in south China is called Guang (Guangdong) embroidery, which could date back to 805 of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Yue (a short name of Guangdong) Embroidery in Guangdong consists of two branches including Guang (Cantonese) style and Chao(zhou) style.

The four renowned embroideries in China are Yue embroidery from Guangdong province, Xiang embroidery from Hunan, Shu embroidery from Sichuan and Su embroidery from Jiangsu.

During the boom of Guang Embroidery in the late Ming Dynasty to mid Qing Dynasty (about 1600-1800 A.D.), many merchants from Britain came to these coastal cities in China for business, bringing their own samples for processing.

In 2006, this folk craftwork was incorporated into China's "Intangible Cultural Heritage".

Guang (Canton) Embroidery master Chen Shaofang and her masterpiece. (file photo)

History: A Strand of Thread Traveling Back One Thousand Years

Guang Embroidery, a marvelous flower on the brocade of Cantonese folk arts, was among China's first batch of intangible cultural heritage. To discover how this art established itself, you can join me, a strand of color threads which travels into the past, for an amazing journey back one thousand years.

A Dreamy Journey to the Tang Dynasty: I was lucky enough to become the thread in the hands of a maiden called Lu Meiniang in Guangdong province. Being quick-witted and nimble-fingered, the 14-year-old Meiniang did her needlework at home everyday, and was able to stitch out a Buddhist sutra, Lotus Sutra, on a tiny silk piece with diminutive yet clearly structured and easily recognized characters. Even in the period of Tang Dynasty, a golden age of outstanding accomplishments and exceptional intellectuals, the deftness of Meiniang was still turned into a much-told story, being recorded instead of falling into oblivion. This marks the debut of Guang Embroidery on the scroll of fame, delicate and subtle, beautiful and crafted.

During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period as well as the Song and Yuan Dynasties, even though the Guang Embroidery did not go down in history records, it continued to shine out with great brilliancy over the long history, dazzling with every strand of thread. In the 35th year of the reign of Emperor Jiajing (1556), another Portuguese came to Guangzhou. Marveling at the Guang Embroideries such as bead embroider shoes, he acclaimed them as “marvelous craftworks”. More than 200 years later, all these craftworks, ranging from traditional pieces to embroidered matador cape and silk scarves, were brought to the European countries like Spain and England. At that time, the threads used by Guang Embroidery artisans could be made of all sorts of materials, including peacock feathers and horsetails used as stitching threads. The artisans in Qing Dynasty even used hair as their threads.

In the “Four Provinces (Cities) Embroidery Exhibition Contest” held in Guangzhou in 1929, several Guang Embroidery works such as Peacock and Peony, Lions, and Snow Scene joined the competition and Guang Embroidery was honored as one of the four major schools of embroidery in China together with Su Embroidery, Shu Embroidery and Xiang Embroidery. By that time, Guang Embroidery had already been world-renowned. In his book Chinese Art, the British writer S. W. Bushell introduced particularly Guang Embroidery, acclaiming the skillfulness of the Chinese people, especially the Cantonese people, in embroidering flowers and birds,. It indicates the feature of Guang Embroidery which usually chooses phoenix, peony, crane, monkey, deer, chicken and goose etc as subjects.

Today: New Guang Embroidery by Chen Shaofang

A popular line in a Chinese poem goes: All are past and gone, and we look to this age for truly great men. This line also applies to Guang Embroidery. A master of Chinese arts and crafts, Chen Shaofang has “hand-sewed” a well-known story in 1978. Displayed then on the Chinese Arts and Crafts Exhibition, her work I Love Chicken Flock was so appealing that Deng Xiao Ping stood before it for quite a long time appreciating it. He even hailed Chen Yonggui delightfully, saying: “Come! Look at these chickens!” Another work of Chen Shaofang, “Beautiful South China”, took her 40 years to design and 10 years to finish. On the 13.8-meters long embroidery, landscapes of Southern China came fully alive: blossoming primroses and the rising sun, pleasant Litchi scents from far away and moonlight over the lotus pond, the natural transition of seasonal sceneries and a strong flavor of life in the Southern water villages. It applies the traditional stitching skills of embroidering hundreds of flowers and birds while adopting innovative techniques. Every stitch inserted into the fabric cleverly hides the needle mark of the previous one. In April 1994, the master of Lingnan School of painting Guan Shanyue saw this embroidery. So deeply impressed that he even broke the promise of never writing calligraphy again and wrote down four Chinese characters meaning “beautiful south China”, highly praising it as an “epoch-making work of Guang Embroidery.”

The reason why Chen Shaofang's embroidery has impressed so many people lies in her bold invention of the Chen Style Guang Embroidery. Compared with traditional embroidery, Chen style appears to be novel and fresh as it creates a three-dimensional and multilayer effect, thus the feathers of birds and petals of flowers can change colors under different lightings. “Images vary when you look from different angles. This is because I've changed the traditional stitching method. The new method adds naturalness to the embroidery. Combined with the color composition technique of spatial mixing in western decorative paintings, the new technique of thread color composition method was invented. The most prominent feature is that it enhances the naturalness, colorfulness and multilayer effect of the embroidery.” Chen Shaofang explained.
In the past, no work of Guang Embroidery has taken white peacock as its subject matter due to some technical difficulty. However, Chen employed the method of embroidering green peacocks and used colors similar to white, absorbing the effect of ambient colors according to the dimensional structure of peacocks. Therefore, the white peacocks become rich in color with subtle changes, and their tails are beautiful, elegant and spectacular.

According to her fellow artists, Chen can embroider litchis rivaling with the shrimps painted by Qi Baishi. She can reveal in detail the distinctions of various litchis in different seasons. In order to bring out excellent embroidery of litchis, Chen observed and depicted the shapes of litchis meticulously, even consulting experienced litchi peasants for a profound understanding of litchi's characteristics. When embroidering litchis in the past, people used to make the basis on the fabric first, followed by outlining the roughly-textured rind. Occasionally, the litchis made in this method would look like small pineapples. Chen Shaofang however, adopted the traditional technique of allowing sufficient space and resorted to the perspective principles of western paintings at the same time. As a result, the texture and roughness of her litchis could almost deceive the most meticulous eyes.

Embroiderers: Men Not Necessarily Outshined by Women

One unique tradition in Guang Embroidery is that male embroiderers outnumber their female counterparts who dominate textile art in other regions. The tradition still exists and can be found in the family tree of Xu Zhiguang -- another master of Guang Embroidery.

Guang (Canton) Embroidery masters Liang Guikai (L) and Xu Chiguang (R). (Yangcheng Evening News)

About two hundred years ago, Xu Zhiguang's ancestor travelled north to the then Guangzhou city from his hometown Panyu, in the hope of starting a journey towards great craftsmanship. The 14-year-old Xu Lian chose to be an apprentice to Guang Embroidery which was an export product to Europe at that time. With his hard work and aspiration, he became a hand sewing master after four years' apprenticeship. Xu Lian's diligence and integrity not only brought him great sewing techniques, but also an adorable wife, the daughter of his teacher in the past four years. From then on, Xu Lian settled down in Guangzhou and passed his techniques from one generation to the next. His offspring Xu Zhiguang is now the fourth generation master of this Guang Embroidery family.

Xu Zhiguang can still remember how old people used to tell him about a craft union named Jinxiu House. It is said that only male embroiderers were eligible for the membership, and women were denied despite how great techniques they had. They were treated as inferior and forbidden to participate in any open contest.

Xu Zhiguang's father and grand father were masters who survived the fierce competitions among various trading houses in Guangzhou. His grand father Xu Rongzhu was an artisan who improved product quality by picking out flaws and re-stitching, while his father Xu Song specialized in washing away stains on fabric, such as bloodstains from the embroidery.

When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1947, Xu Zhiguang and his father Xu Song were honored with Class 8 title, the highest rank for an embroiderer. Xu Song was known for his washing technique in the entire industry. A worker at Yi Feng Embroidery Factory, Xu Song enjoyed the privilege to work outside the factory and handled the stained pieces of embroidery. Washing is all about color consistency, not only to get rid of the blood stain, but also the water streak. Xu Song invented a method to avoid crease and color distortion, therefore he could sit on the piece during his work and smoke a cigarette at the same time, using his body temperature to dry off the embroidery.

In 1959, Xu Zhiguang and eight Class 8 fellows summarized 27 stitching methods and compiled a book named Guang Embroidery Stitches, which served as a guide book facilitating the design and stitches of Guang Embroidery. According to the book, Straight stitches was commonly adopted when stitching the patterns of human eyes; Random Stitches was mainly used when creating a painting effect and Knotted stitches is mostly used to create 3-dimentional effect.

Xu Zhiguang's masterpiece The Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers was selected by the State Bureau of Light Industry to appear in the World Youth United Association in Moscow. He was often invited to the Canton Fair to perform his skills to the foreign guests. Though wearing strong presbyopia glasses today, Xu Zhiguang still dedicates himself to the Guang Embroidery as a pioneer. As a living legend, he has set a great example for male embroiderers in the entire industry, just as Sister Aqing once did for women.

(By Carrot Chan, Jiang Yuejun, and Chen Ting)