Lan Eucalyptus went to visit the Forbidden City, saw the cultural relics in the window, and thought, what kind of experience is it to wear silk on her body?

Silk was once monopolized by the royal family in the Qing Dynasty, and it was almost invisible to the people. In the court of the Qing Dynasty, silk was commonly used in silk paintings, silk ornaments, silk clothing, etc.

Because the weaving process is very complicated, the process takes a long time, and the price is more expensive than gold, so there is also a saying that "one inch of silk is one inch of gold".

The documentary "Weaving - The Story of Weaving", Chinese weaving, has a long history. From the oldest Li brocade, the simple and elegant blue calico, to the gorgeous silk, the exquisite Song brocade, and then to the graceful cheongsam in the modern city; A loom, a few shuttles, and weaving tools are so simple, but its beauty makes people indulge in it and taste it repeatedly.

Qing Shunzhi blue silk four-group cloud dragon pattern gown and yellow stripe, length 144 cm, two sleeves length 136 cm, hem width 128 cm. Figure 3, Qing Shunzhiping gold embroidered cloud dragon pattern robe, length 140.5 cm, two sleeves length 133.4 cm, hem width 124 cm.

Figure 456, Qing Shunzhi blue silk cloud dragon pattern robe and partial, length 148 cm, two sleeves 138 cm long, hem width 120 cm. Fig. 789, Qing Shunzhi blue silk cloud dragon pattern gown and partial.

Silk was once monopolized by the royal family in the Qing Dynasty, and it was almost invisible to the people. In the court of the Qing Dynasty, silk was commonly used in silk paintings, silk ornaments, silk clothing, etc. Because the age is not far away, many court silk products of the Qing Dynasty have been preserved intact.

Qing Dynasty court silk inherited the Ming Dynasty's silk techniques, and on its basis of continuous development and innovation, when the Qing court silk development to the peak, gradually become a fusion of silk, embroidery, painting as one of the comprehensive art.

The Qing Dynasty emperor's love for the art of calligraphy and painting directly promoted the comprehensive development of silk painting in the Qing Dynasty, and in addition to silk calligraphy and painting and silk fabrics with religious themes, silk clothing, silk fans, and silk court utilities can also be described as exquisite and abnormal.

Silk is the essence of traditional Chinese silk artwork, which is a very decorative silk fabric woven by picking the warp and weft, due to the time-consuming and labor-intensive, few craftsmen who can weave, high cost reasons, silk has been the royal fabric since the Song and Yuan dynasties, and ordinary people rarely see it.

Since the beginning of silk weaving techniques, it has been used in a variety of practical and decorative items. Most of the silk fabrics unearthed in the Tang Dynasty were practical products, and the fabric style was also obviously influenced by the West; The silk of the Song Dynasty was not only more mature than that of the Tang Dynasty, but also raised the artistry of the silk to the top.

After the Tang and Song dynasties, the silk is still developing, or used in weaving calligraphy and painting works, religious articles, or used for clothing decoration, daily decoration, and now there are many fine works.

For the royal family and nobles, silk is one of the royal fabrics, and different dynasties have different development opportunities because of different social and political backgrounds; For the people, silk is like a distant dream, it is more precious than gold, and it is beyond reach.

The term "well-dressed beast" is now mostly interpreted as derogatory, and it is very directly explained in the "Cihai" published by Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House in 1979: well-dressed beasts, such as people with corrupt morals, say that this kind of people have the appearance of a person, but act like a beast. In fact, the term "well-dressed beast" was originally a compliment.

The phrase "well-dressed beasts" comes from the clothing of officials in the Ming Dynasty. According to historical records, the Ming Dynasty stipulated that the official uniforms of civil officials should be embroidered with birds, and the official uniforms of military attachés should be embroidered with animals. Depending on the grade, decide which kind of birds and beasts to embroider.

Complements are this kind of image identification embroidered or woven with gold thread and colored silk. The Qing Dynasty's "Imperial Decree of the Qing Dynasty" has stipulated: "Wen Yi official supplement embroidered crane, Wen second official supplement embroidered brocade chicken, Wen third official supplement embroidered peacock, Wen fourth official supplement embroidered goose, Wen fifth official supplement embroidered white pheasant, Wen sixth official supplement embroidered heron, Wen Seventh official supplement embroidered emu pattern, Wen Eighth official supplement embroidered quail, Wen Jiu official supplement embroidered sparrow, unentered official supplement system same; The Imperial History of the Imperial Prefecture is supplemented by embroidered pigs, the deputy Imperial History, the matter is in the middle of the matter, and the supplementary service system is the same according to the inspection".

Court costumes generally refer to the various robes and costumes worn by the emperor, concubines, princes, grandsons, relatives, princes and ministers in and out of the palace in and out of the palace. Since these people who wear these clothes are either rich or expensive, they are extremely skillful and meticulous in the production of clothing. In the selection of materials, the so-called "brocade is like clouds, yarn is like cicada wings", as for silk, embroidery and other crafts are all exquisite.

According to records, at that time, a silk dragon robe of the emperor cost 390 working days, not to mention ten thousand gold. Its production and management are the responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the whole process is meticulous in the division of labor, orderly management, and a large number of personnel. There are 2,602 full-time weavers in dragon robes.

According to the records of the Qing Palace's "Internal Affairs Office Sales Files" and "Internal Affairs Office Offices Make Work Records" and other archives, the emperor's edicts repeatedly required the official bureau to weave satin "to be uniform in warp and weft, appropriate in width and length, delicate in pattern, and bright in color", and the quality was not up to standard, and it must be compensated, fined or whipped.

The dragon robe is made regardless of the cost, with red gold twisted thread and feathers as the down, so the embroidered dragon pattern is golden; And the woven phoenix colorful wings are colorful, and the posture of the dragon and the phoenix jumps on. Therefore, although they are clothing, they are also the highest representatives of the level of embroidery craftsmanship in the Qing Dynasty.

In the Ming Dynasty, the complements were generally larger in size, more plain, and the base was mostly red, and the top was coiled into various patterns with gold threads. The complements of the Qing Dynasty were small and simple, in pairs before and after, generally with dark colors such as blue, black, and crimson as the base, and were woven and embroidered in colorful colors, and the colors were gorgeous. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the complements used by officials were all in the form of square patches, and there were three production methods: brocade, embroidery and silk.

The silk complement is usually woven with the technique of "through the warp and weft", the silk workmanship is fine, and the pattern and color matching have a luxurious atmosphere, which can better reflect the majesty of "a product when the dynasty".

Wen Zhengming's "Qingyu Case: Pomegranate Flowers Under the Court" in the Ming Dynasty once had such a sentence: The fan does not shake the wind and bootstrap, the green bamboo, the slender white ramie, and is not subject to some heat. In this poem, Wen Zhengming uses "the fan does not shake and cools itself" to depict the unique atmosphere of the green shade in the courtyard on a summer afternoon and the sleepy life of the people in the boudoir.

From ancient times to the present, fans have always been the favorite objects of literati and artists, and my fair lady. The fan has a long history in China, and the fan originated in the Han Dynasty.

Cut into a hehuan fan, the group is like a bright moon......" here refers to the group fan, and this poem has a preliminary definition of the group fan. However, due to the popularity of folding fans, the group fan declined for a time, and became popular again in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.

The harem women of the Qing Dynasty court used more fans, and different patterns on the fans had different meanings, basically with blessing wishes, such as bats representing blessings, The Hague is a symbol of talent, pomegranates are many sons and blessings, peonies are flowers blooming and rich, cranes mean longevity, etc.

It is worth mentioning that the Qing Dynasty silk technology has developed greatly compared with the previous generation, one of which is to create a double-sided "through" technology, the pattern on both sides of the fabric made by this silk process is the same, the lines are clear, and it is more suitable for the use of decorative interstitial screens and fans, so the Qing Dynasty court has a large number of fans using the "through" technology.

The silk fan has a relatively high artistic appreciation. Many silk fans have both flat painted color blocks, as well as compositional shapes, Qi Yi, generally have a strong sense of three-dimensionality, and the subject matter of silk works are popular with people, so its artistic and ornamental value can be completely in competition with silk paintings.

Silk was once monopolized by the royal family in the Qing Dynasty, and it was almost invisible to the people. In the court of the Qing Dynasty, silk was commonly used in silk paintings, silk ornaments, silk clothing, etc.

The documentary "Weaving - The Story of Weaving", Chinese weaving, has a long history. From the oldest Li brocade, the simple and elegant blue calico, to the gorgeous silk, the exquisite Song brocade, and then to the graceful cheongsam in the modern city; A loom, a few shuttles, and weaving tools are so simple, but its beauty makes people indulge in it and taste it repeatedly.

I believe that animism, especially handmade objects, is mixed over a long period of time, endowed with ritual and a certain ineffable energy. Just like now, you open a link to read a Q&A about a lesser-known craft, like a thread of cause and effect that weaves us together in the present moment.

Silk is also known as carved silk, which is the essence of Chinese silk art. This is a kind of warp and weft pattern pattern, forming the pattern boundary, with the effect of carving and engraving, and rich double-sided three-dimensional silk handicrafts. The method of weaving can be different from embroidery and brocade. It adopts the weaving method of "through warp and weft", and the weaving method of general brocade is "through warp and weft", that is, the weft thread penetrates the entire width of the fabric.

Silk has its own special loom, the silk machine, which is a simple plain weave machine. When weaving, the warp thread is installed on the loom first, and the warp line is lined with a draft or manuscript, and the weaver uses a brush to depict the color pattern of the pattern on the warp surface through the warp, and then weaves it in pieces with a boat-shaped small shuttle pattern about ten centimeters long and equipped with various silk threads.

Silk can change color freely, so it is particularly suitable for making calligraphy and painting works. The weaver of the weaving weft must have a certain artistic attainment. The structure of the silk fabric follows the principles of "fine warp and coarse weft", "white warp and color weft", and "straight warp and curved weft".

That is: the natural color warp is fine, the color weft is coarse, the weft is warp, and only the color weft is shown without revealing the warp. Since the color weft is fully covered on the upper part of the fabric, the effect of the pattern will not be affected by the shrinkage of the weft after weaving

Silk is not really carved with a knife, this is a kind of raw silk as the warp, color cooked silk as the weft, using the warp back to the method of weaving into the plain weave fabric: the weft according to the pre-depicted pattern, the weft silk only in the pattern needs to interweave with the warp silk does not penetrate the whole width, with a number of small shuttles according to the pattern color respectively digging and weaving, so that the fabric on the pattern and plain ground, color and color between some breaks, similar to the image of knife carving, this is the so-called "through the warp and weft" weaving. The ancients described the silk as "a carved image of the void". The "warp and weft" mentioned in the old silk records refers to this meaning. The pattern of the finished product is the same on both sides.

Silk skills in the Song Dynasty after the continuous development, to the Qing Dynasty silk industry center has moved to Suzhou area, the use of color weft silk up to 6000 colors, the use of silk method to copy the celebrity calligraphy and painting, exquisite craftsmanship, the image of lifelike. Silk products are still produced and collected as high-grade handicrafts.

The creation of silk is often very laborious and time-consuming, sometimes it takes several months or even more than a year to complete a work, so the completion of a silk work often requires a lot of effort from the author;

It is also because of the weaving method through the warp and weft that another feature of the silk is determined - the finished product of repairing the excess thread on the reverse side, and the pattern color is exactly the same on both sides.

Embroidery refers to the general term of various decorative patterns embroidered on the fabric by the needle thread, so the embroidery must have a ready-made base material, and the finished pattern and the background color are superimposed, while the pattern and the background color of the silk are embedded and intertwined, completely on a plane.

Brocade and silk are hand-woven silk jacquard fabrics of the same stream, and the general weft brocade adopts the weaving method of "through the warp and weft" - the weft runs through the whole width, the front pattern is clear, and the back is a shuttle floating weft, the pattern is messy, the fabric is heavy, and the hair head can not be cut. There is a limit to the number of shuttles in the weft direction of the brocade, so the richness of the color of the expression pattern is not as good as that of silk.

Silk is easy to learn and difficult to master, especially the imitation of calligraphy and painting works, which requires the weaver not only to have a good technical foundation, but also to have a very high artistic understanding. The color changes that can be expressed in a single stroke in the painting should be broken down into countless color blocks and even pixels in the silk, and the details such as lines need to be woven with enough experience, otherwise picking a little more may destroy the beauty of the picture when weaving.

As a hand-woven process, there is no way to process silk by mechanical until now, and its richness and delicacy of color cannot be replaced by machines. Even a skilled worker can only weave one or two inches of plain silk a day, and when encountering a painting with complex patterns and delicate colors, he may only be able to weave a few centimeters a day.

A finished silk product takes quite a long time, the ancients have "a woman's clothes, all year round" said, in which the boring and lonely alternation of cold and summer only craftsmen with a heart of art, in the shuttle years quietly spending.

Most of the silk works are collective works, and later generations can only judge the value of such works by looking at the craftsmanship and artistic value of the works themselves

The creation of silk is often very laborious and time-consuming, sometimes it takes several months or even more than a year to complete a work, so the completion of a silk work often requires a lot of effort from the author;

Silk works are highly ornamental. Many silk works have both flat and painted color blocks, as well as compositional and shaped. Silk works generally have a strong sense of three-dimensionality, and the subject matter of silk works is popular with people, so its artistic and ornamental value can completely compete with famous calligraphy and painting, and even surpass.

During the period from the Ming Dynasty to Xuande, the calligraphy and painting of celebrities were copied again, creating the second prosperous period of silk. The artistic style is deeply influenced by the painting style of Wu Di, which is more and more elegant and elegant, and the silk artist weaves the sketches of the famous painters of the Wumen painting school, and is famous for a while.

In the Qing Dynasty, silk went to its heyday. The increase in demand for luxury textiles inside and outside the court promoted the expansion of the scale of silk production and the progress of skills, especially the palace and official supplies of the Shangjiao Jiangnan Weaving Mansion.

Until the 80s of the last century, because high-end daily necessities, kimono belts and other silk products were favored by Japanese customers, export demand increased year by year, and the silk industry ushered in a golden age. At that time, there were more than 10,000 silk weavers in Suzhou and tens of thousands of machines, which exceeded any dynasty in history, and the silk weaving skills were unprecedentedly developed.

In the past two years, probably because the fan made by Li Jing is too popular, the precious fabric of silk has gradually become known. 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.