Xiang embroidery

Hunan embroidery, or Xiang embroidery, as one of the traditional folk arts of China, is regarded as one of the four most distinguished embroidery styles in China (along with Cantonese embroidery, Sichuan embroidery and Suzhou embroidery). It is a general name for the embroidery products which originate from and are mostly produced in Changsha, Hunan, with distinct characteristics of Chu culture. Hunan embroidery is particularly famous in embroidering with silk thread, and the patterns have a high sense of reality. In 2006, Hunan embroidery was included in the first set of contributions to the nation's intangible cultural heritage recognized by the State Council.

Based on the embroidery unearthed from Chu tomb in 1958 in Changsha, Hunan, embroidery technology had developed to a certain extent in some localities of Hunan early, dating back to the Spring and Autumn period, over 2,500 years ago. The forty pieces of embroidered garments excavated from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha in 1972 also showed the excellence of the embroidery technology in areas of Hunan during the Western Han Dynasty around 2,100 years ago. In the years following, Xiang Embroidery gradually cultivated its simple and graceful style.

In the 24th year of Emperor Gangxu's reign (1898), Wu Hancheng, son of the embroiderer Hu Lianxian, established in Changsha the first embroidery workshop, named “Wu Caixia Embroidery Workshop” with its products self-produced and self-marketed. Thanks to the embroideries produced there, Xiang embroidery spread and made its name throughout the nation. At the end of Guangxu period, the folk art of Xiang Embroidery developed a particular embroidery system and became the incubator of market-oriented handicrafts with strong local characteristics of the Hunan area, different from other types of embroidery. Since then, the term “Xiang Embroidery” has taken off and become widely used.

The book of Changsha County, written in the Tongzhi period of late Qing Dynasty, said, “In the provincial capital, women prefer embroidering to spinning, and the powerful or rich families highly praise and give great honor to embroidery.” Changsha County is the traditional base of Xiang embroidery with the name of “Home of Xiang Embroidery”, where the majority of peasant women work in embroidery. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the number of embroidery workshops had increased to 26 in Changsha County, the number of embroidery craftspeople had reached the tens of thousands, and the annual output of embroideries exceeded 20,000 pieces. Most of these pieces were used as daily necessities, such as quilt sheets or pillowcases, with a minority being finer pieces, such as high quality screen covers.

In the 1930s, the production value of Xiang Embroidery could reach up to 800,000 silver dollars, and a third of pieces were exported abroad. During the decades after liberation, Xiang Embroidery achieved remarkable progress and was included into the list of “the four famous Chinese embroideries”, due to its unique style and remarkable double-sided embroidery technology. It has also become an artistic calling card for Hunan province, and even China as a nation, with an annual total export of $5 million US dollars.

The proficient manipulation of different shades of grey, black and white and the natural chiaroscuro in Xiang Embroidery both enhance its texture and stereoscopic effect; the combination of the void and the solid in its structure makes a good use of emptiness on the embroidery cloth, thus highlighting the subject. In addition, borrowing skills of traditional painting, Xiang Embroidery has also given full play to the embroidery technology. Therefore, it finally forms a realistic, bright and simple style strongly affected by the local culture of Hunan and has the simplicity and elegance of Chinese wash painting on the other hand.

Xiang embroidery uses pure silk, hard satin, soft satin, transparent gauze and nylon as its materials as well as a variety of colorful silk threads. Traditional Xiang Embroidery uses threads in a very distinctive way—the thread is firstly boiled with Gleditsia and then wiped with bamboo paper, which prevents the thread from pilling and thus is convenient for embroidering. In Xiang Embroidery, there is a special type of thread—in one thread dyed one color with different shades of that color, by which the sfumato effect can be presented after the embroidering finished. In addition, Xiang Embroidery is also renowned for its careful thread splitting technique, making the thread as thin as hair. And people call the embroidery using this kind of thread “Yang Mao Xi Xiu”.

There are 72 types of stitches in traditional Xiang Embroidery including You stitch, Mao stitch, Peng hair stitch, Qi stitch, Ping stitch(flatting stitch), Wang stitch, Dazi stitch, random stitch and Gold Wire stitch, etc. and they can be divided into five major types: flat embroidery, brocade embroidery, mesh embroidery, twist embroidery and knot embroidery.