From the Sui and Tang dynasties to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, it was a prosperous period for the art of dyeing plants and trees, and the colors dyed were constantly enriched. In the silk fabrics of the Tang Dynasty unearthed in Turpan, the color spectrum seen is incomplete.

The red system includes silver red, water red, scarlet, crimson red, purple and other colors; The yellow system includes goose yellow, chrysanthemum yellow, apricot yellow, golden yellow, earth yellow, brown and other colors; The cyan color system includes egg blue, azure, emerald blue, royal blue, red blue, navy blue and other colors; The green system includes lake green, bean green, leaf green, fruit green, dark green and other colors; Together with white and black, there are as many as 24 colors.

The development of dyeing technology has also given birth to fashion trends in clothing. The ancient popular tulip skirt and pomegranate skirt that often appear in poetry are monochrome Luo skirts dyed with tulips and safflowers. The tulip dyed in the tulip skirt is not the ornamental flower tulip we know now, but the tuber root of the turmeric genus tulip, a common Chinese medicine.

Tulip dyeing probably began in the Han Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty tulip skirt began to prevail. Zhang Mi of the Southern Tang Dynasty "The Story of the Makeup Building" Yiyun: "Yujin, fragrant grass, dyed women's clothes are the most distinct, but they are reluctant to do so, and the burned and dyed clothes have a slight tulip atmosphere."

Even more popular than the tulip skirt is the pomegranate skirt. The color of the pomegranate skirt is bright red like a pomegranate flower, hence the name. But unlike the tulip dress, the color of the pomegranate dress is not dyed by pomegranate flowers, but by red flowers.

Safflower, also known as red and blue flower, was originally brought back to the Central Plains by Zhang Qian from the Western Regions and was a commonly used red dye in the Tang Dynasty. In addition to this, it can also be used to make red makeup powder, which is rouge.

By the Ming Dynasty, the number of plants available for dyeing had expanded to dozens of species. According to the "Ming Huidian Weaving Strip", the dyes used in weaving in the Ming Dynasty were Sumu, Huangdan, alum, gardenia, indigo, acacia, black plum, soda smelting, wood purple, madder and so on.

This has been accompanied by an ever-expanding staining chromatogram. According to the record of "Tianshui Iceberg Record", there are dozens of kinds of fabric dyeing in the Ming Dynasty, such as red, water red, pink, green, flashing red, azure, black blue, green, black green, dark green, oil green, sand green, willow green, blue, agarwood, jade, purple, yellow, willow yellow, white, green onion white, flash, variegated and so on. There are more than 20 kinds of Ming Dynasty chromatography and dyeing methods recorded in Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu".

In the Qing Dynasty, the dyeing chromatography was further increased, and there were hundreds of varieties. There are more than 100 entries about the color of clothing mentioned in "Dream of Red Mansions".

Although "Dream of Red Mansions" is fictional, the details are basically realistic. The three generations of the Cao family served as the weaver in Jiangning, and the description of the clothing in the book "Dream of Red Mansions" completely shows the prosperity of the dyeing and weaving industry in the early and middle Qing Dynasty.

Nowadays, more and more natural plants and trees have been found that can be used as dyes, but there are only a few commonly used by people: red and blue flowers, madder roots, and sumacia for dyeing red; Yellow dyeing with gardenia, onion skin, acacia flowers; bluegrass for dyeing blue (including indigo, amaranth, horse indigo, acacia indigo, etc.); wormwood for dyeing green; comfrey for dyeing purple; Dye black with gallnut and acorn. Using these basic dyes for overdyeing, you can dye a variety of different colors.

So, what is the specific process of dyeing plants and trees, and how to use monochrome dye sets to dye different shades of color? Let's go through the records in "Heavenly Creations: Zhangshi", let's rise the posture together~

Red

[Big red: its quality safflower cake is delicious, fried with black plum water, and cleared several times with alkaline water. Or rice manuscript gray alkali, the function is the same. It has been clear many times, and the color is very fresh. 】

To dye the bright red, use safflower cake (a thin cake made by processing and kneading safflower) as raw materials, fry it in black plum water, and then add alkaline water or plant ash to clarify it several times. After a few more clarifications, the colors will be very vibrant.

[Lotus red, peach, silver red, water red: the above quality is also a safflower cake, and the light and depth are divided into two additions and subtractions. It is not the four colors that can be done by yellow cocoon silk, and it must be displayed with white silk. 】

Lotus red, pink, silver red, and water red are also dyed with safflower cake, and the shade of color is determined according to the addition or subtraction of the amount of safflower cake. These four colors can only be dyed on white cocoon silk, and yellow cocoon silk cannot be dyed.

[Wood red: Fry water with sumac wood, add alum and candies. 】

To dye wood red, first use sumac wood to fry water, add alum, gallnut can be dyed.

[Purple: Sumu is the ground, and the alum is still there. 】

If you dye it purple, you first dye the cloth red with sumac water and then dip it in alum mordant.

Yellow

[Goose yellow: Yellow barberry fried water dyeing, indigo water cover. 】

Dye goose yellow first with yellow barberry boiled water to dye the base color, and then use blue indigo water to dye it.

[Golden: reed wood frying water dyeing, reuse hemp manuscript ash shower, alkali water drifting. 】

Dye the golden yellow first with reed wood decoction water to dye the base color, and then rinse with alkaline water.

[Brown: Lotus seed shell decoction and water dyeing, reuse alum water cover. 】

The brown color is dyed with lotus seed shell alkali water, and then dyed with alum water.

[Lotus root: Purple wood water is thinly dyed, and the lotus seed shell and alum water are thinly covered. 】

Dye the lotus root brown, first dye it with sumac water, and then use lotus seed shell and alum water to dye it.

Cyan

[Big red official green: Huaihua flower fried water dyeing, blue lake cover, light and deep are all made of alum. 】

Dye the big red official green, first dye the base color with acacia boiled water, and then dye it with blue indigo. Regardless of the color or shade, alum should be used as a mordant.

[Bean green: yellow barberry water dyeing, indigo water cover. Today, the person who decoctions the water cover with amaranth blue is a green grass bean, and the color is very fresh. 】

Dye the bean green with barberry water and blue indigo water. Now the color dyed with amaranth blue boiled water is grass bean green, and the color is very bright.

[Oil green: acacia flowers are thinly dyed, and alum is covered. 】

The oil green is slightly dyed with acacia flower water, and then dyed with alum mordant.

[Azure color: light dyeing into the indigo tank, Sumu water cover. 】

Dye azure, first immerse yourself in indigo water to slightly dye the base color, and then use sumac water to dye it.

[Grape cyan: deep dyeing into the indigo jar, deep cover of sumac water. 】

To dye the grapes green, first immerse them in indigo water and dye them deeply, and then dye them with thick sumac water.

[Egg blue: Yellow barberry water dyeing, then into the indigo jar. 】

The dyed egg blue is first dyed with yellow barberry water, and then immersed in blue indigo water for dyeing.

[Emerald blue, sky blue: the depth of indigo water. 】

Emerald blue and sky blue are all dyed with blue indigo water, but there are slight shades.

[Moon white, grass white two colors: indigo water slightly dyed, this method with amaranth blue decoction water, half-raw and half-cooked dyeing. 】

Moon white and grass white are thinly dyed with blue indigo water. Nowadays, it is dyed with amaranth in decoction water and boiled until it is half-cooked.

Black

[Dark color: indigo water dyed dark blue, reed, bayberry peel and other parts of the decoction water cover. Another method, the blue bud leaves are soaked in water, and then the alum and the raft are soaked together, and the cloth is easy to perish. 】

Dye the dark color, first dye it dark blue with strong indigo, and then dye it with the same amount of reed wood and bayberry peel fried water. Another method is to boil the young leaves of bluegrass and dye it with water, and then use alum and gallnut mordant, but this method is easy to make the cloth rot.

White

[Ivory: Thinly dyed with reed wood decoction water, or with loess. 】

Dye ivory with reed wood boiling water, or dye it with loess.

After repeated practice, the ancient people of our country finally mastered a set of dyeing techniques using plant dyes. Today, let's take a look at this ancient technology, plant dyeing.

Many colorful and exquisite fabrics are still unknown treasures of Hubei, the inheritor of traditional plant dye dyeing skills of Hubei, the intangible cultural heritage. He had to boil the leaves to extract the pigment, and then dye them and face the two pieces of cloth that were colored on them.

Careful friends, do you find that the color of these two pieces of cloth is not the same, the same leaves, why do they dye two colors, these two pieces of cloth, and how to dye the color, in order to answer this mystery, let's first understand the definition of plant dyeing, plant dyeing is actually that is, it is a method of extracting dyes from plants, giving people to use, they can come from the roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits of plants, etc., because the pigment used for dyeing is extracted from plant cells, therefore, plant dyeing, also known as plant hair dyeing.

The traditional plant dye dyeing technique mentioned above can be said to be another name for plant dyeing, and there are more than a dozen types of pigment components that can be used for dyeing. For example, flavonoids, polyphenolic compounds, anthraquinone compounds, chlorophyll.

They are widely present in the body of plants, plant dyeing, in our country has a long history, a dyeing word contains our ancestors, in the wisdom of dyeing, where to see a lazy word three points of water next to a nine under a wood. What this means is all in the mouth, and we all take it from plants and plants.

From the dyeing words, it can be seen that our ancestors mastered it a long time ago, extracted from the plant to cover it, used to dye the memory, dyeing the official position of people, dyeing grass in the exhibition hall, thin lace, dyeing, to the historical records of Sima Qian in the Western Han Dynasty.

It is written in the biography that the income obtained by those who plant thousands of acres of machinery, slender grass or pull ginger leeks can be compared with that of thousands of households. It can be seen that at least until the Western Han Dynasty, grass and wood dyeing has been artificially cultivated on a large scale. And extract from it, madder red pigment, used for dyeing, do the development of technology.

The classification and name of the color have also increased, and later, there are more than 30 kinds of color names when talking about the text, as well as the Tiangong Kaiwu of the Ming Dynasty and so on, the variety of colors, there are more and more Oh, to the Qing Dynasty, there are about seven or eight hundred colors to remember, and the color classification and name of plant dyes.

The more mature the development of plant dyeing in our country, it has been widely used in the textile industry, and in 1856, the British chemist Parkin has developed synthetic dyes, synthetic dyes for dyeing, and the development of the textile industry has been developed due to low cost and high efficiency, bright colors and good color fastness. The synthetic dye dyeing process was popularized around the world and was introduced to China in 1902.

The impact of the tradition of dyeing plants and trees is related to the decline of our gradual distancing and decline, and now with the country's increased efforts to protect the environment and the emphasis on traditional handicrafts, the traditional dyeing technique is related.

In addition to youthful vitality. From an environmental point of view, plant dyeing, the oldest dyeing technique, attaches great importance to the harmony and unity of man and nature, and is much less polluting than the waste and wastewater generated in the process of dyeing synthetic dyes.

Good performance to strong dyeing, can be used to dye the color difference, in fact, the source is very wide, they exist around us.

For example, the leaves and young branches of the willow tree can be dyed pale green and pale pink respectively, so that the leaves and branches of the willow tree can be separated. A small portion is used for extraction, while most of the leaves and branches are fanned up and can be stored for a long time, ready to be used to extract pigments.

Interested friends may wish to transfer the plant pigment back in the summer, and only transfer it back when it is sufficient, and dry and store the plant resources that can be used to make dyes are very rich, due to the variety of things.

There will be some differences in the content of different pigments, if you want to eat bean skin, try to drink tea walnut skin. These things are all too familiar in our lives, they can be used to extract pigments for dyeing, and of course there are many plants that are not suitable for dyeing.

For example, spinach contains chlorophyll pigments, after the cloth of indifferent color is cleaned, the color fastness is poor, and the color is easy to fall off.

This is the reason why the leaves can be dyed in two colors, the parts are different, and the leaves, bark, trunks, roots, and flowers may be different from the outermost layer of the people. This is not a uniform regulation, but it is necessary to practice it repeatedly, so that because of the variety of pigments in the plant, it is not a simple matter to classify them according to special ingredients.

Friends who are interested in plant dyeing may wish to learn about these classification methods to facilitate everyone's understanding. According to the design, it can be divided into red, blue, yellow, green, purple.

And black and gray, seven major colors, I will briefly introduce these colors, red and yellow are more common, you can see everywhere, the outermost layer of onion skin. The main ingredient is the traditional Chinese medicine turmeric acacia flower, these things are our common yellow diamonds, the green series of programs mainly include, bamboo leaves, reed leaves, willow leaves, power, common purple sweet potatoes, purple cabbage, blueberries, etc. in our lives because of the anthocyanins.

It's a good purple plant, for example, our version of the river and black gray, which helps us understand the enjoyment of beauty, and the bayberry leaves of the south.

All are painted with black ash, this is the charm of plant dyeing, how to extract plants, and how, dyeing, the pigments in the body of plants dyed by plants are diverse, and we understand which plants can be extracted. Let's take a look at this color later, how to extract the pigment and how to use these degrees to dye, and after long-term practice, several dyeing methods have been summarized.

Add a small amount of live alkali to it, you can't add it casually, the reed category, it doesn't matter, it will even become blue, the live alkali is sodium hydroxide is alkaline, after adding, it will make the dyeing alkaline, which will affect some special dyeing effects, or you can not add it, and the time will be longer.

The most commonly used is this kind of heating element, the container used, but there is a particular one, this is because when cooking, if there are copper, iron and tin ions, it will be predicted that some elements in it will be combined and affect the dyeing agent made.

Our craft has been passed down from generation to generation by our ancestors. This craft has also come to this day through the research of our predecessors, but it can't be cut off in our hands.

Waiting for a tree to take root and blossom, boiling its excess branches and leaves into beautiful colors, and letting those colors stay on cloth and paper, is a beautiful thing to touch. In order to find the source of dyeing and weaving, Ma Yuxiu quit her job and followed her husband Chen Jinglin to go deep into Yunnan and Guizhou, and in the past 10 years, they went deep into the barren land to record, learn and preserve these traditional skills that may have been lost, and brought back to Taiwan the most natural plant dyeing skills in the mountains and the weaving and embroidery skills of ethnic minorities and passed them on to more people.

In the early morning of the last Sunday in June, the children of the Chen family, who were in the first grade of the Chinese elementary school, were already standing in the courtyard with baskets. The night before, it had just rained in Nantou County, and the uncle next door was in a hurry to call to tell the Chen family that he was going to tidy up the courtyard - residents living nearby knew that if they wanted to repair the garden, they must inform the Chen family, and Chen Jinglin and his wife, who love plants, would not miss this good time to collect leaves.

After a busy day, Ma Yuxiu took her son to pick up a lot of branches and leaves of seven miles of incense and roses, as well as a basket of hairy chestnut shells and discarded onion skins. These wastes, which are useless in the eyes of others, are Ma Yuxiu's treasures, and after special treatment, they will be turned into colorful dyes to dress up the cloth.

In order to dye cloth, the Chen family moved from Taipei to Nantou because of the abundant sunshine, spacious courtyards, abundant plants and welcoming neighbors. During holidays, students from all over the world gather to learn to distinguish the characteristics of plants, grind branches and leaves, and print and dye square towels. Take a look at the latest chapters of "Dream Claw Book House in the Great Era" and read it for free for the first time.