Lan Eucalyptus was at Liu Mengshi's house and saw an antique palace blanket.

The palace carpet is the most neglected skill in the "Eight Masterpieces of Yanjing", because most of the time it is padded under utensils and shoes; But it's also a stunning skill because of the craftsmanship, the beauty of design, and even the historical information it contains.

There is such a slip of the tongue in Beijing: a central axis from north to south, a strict layout of symmetrical squares, an outer city and an inner city plus an imperial city, and the city surrounds the Forbidden City. As soon as most people hear this, they will guess that the answer is the Forbidden City, yes. However, in the Beijing carpet industry, it is described as "palace carpet".

As the name suggests, the palace carpet is a carpet used in the imperial palace. The materials and craftsmanship are all of the highest quality, which was widely used in the Qing Dynasty, and the palace office sent it to the pinnacle of art, so it is also called "Guanfang carpet".

Palace carpet, is rich in Beijing regional characteristics and palace characteristics of handicraft products, originated in Ningxia, because of its firm weaving, soft blanket surface, won the favor of the royal magnates, since the Yuan Dynasty, it has become the imperial palace supplies, the palace carpet is also named after it.

Weaving carpet in our country has a history of more than two years, as early as the Yuan Dynasty, the Yuan Dadu has been specially designed for the palace to weave carpet workshops, to the Ming and Qing dynasties, it has been greatly developed. In the first year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty, there were 9 carpet craftsmen in the Beijing Weaving and Dyeing Bureau who specially weaved carpets for the emperor, and during the Xianfeng period, a large number of Tibetan carpet weavers entered Beijing, and the handmade carpets were more prosperous in Beijing.

Beijing hand-woven carpet production technology is exquisite, the pattern is rich and colorful, because it was the palace special imperial supplies in the past, so it is also called the palace carpet. There are many varieties of carpets, tapestries, lying carpets, etc., and the raw materials are mainly wool and silk threads, and the weaving is firm and the blanket surface is soft.

Beijing palace carpet is known for its traditional patterns, integrating Chinese painting, embroidery, brocade, architectural decorative arts, with Beijing-style, antiquity, ethnic style, brocade pattern, flower and bird style, etc., the pattern pays attention to the symmetry of the pattern, giving people a sense of peace and stability, and has a strong Chinese national cultural atmosphere.

The court art tapestries also integrate Chinese painting with Western painting, creating a charm of Chinese and Western styles. It is well-known in the world for its fine craftsmanship, beautiful style, colorful patterns and elegant tones, and is called "the representative of oriental art" by Westerners.

The production of palace carpets is divided into four major processes: design, weaving, sheet cutting and finishing. After the craftsman designs the pattern of the carpet, he also enlarges it according to the size of the carpet and identifies the wool of different colors with different symbols. Then, according to the pattern, the warp and weft threads are crossed to weave the wool into pieces. From point to line, from line to surface, the exquisite carpet is formed little by little.

In Beijing alone, Yuan Dadu already had a workshop for weaving carpets for the imperial palace. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the use of palace carpets was more extensive. During the Yongzheng period, there were nine carpet craftsmen in the Beijing Weaving and Dyeing Bureau who specialized in weaving carpets for the imperial palace. Qianlong even asked many times which palace laid what carpet and how to match the furnishings.

On November 15 of the 32nd year of Qianlong (1767), Emperor Qianlong decreed, "The string of branches will be laid in the East Warm Pavilion of the Qianqing Palace, and the red swastika carpet will be laid in the West Warm Pavilion.

In the long years, generations of emperors prefer likes and dislikes in the continuous change, from Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places with distinctive local characteristics of the pattern decoration, encountered the cultural elements of the Central Plains, and then through the "Ruyi Pavilion" (Ruyi Pavilion was established by the Kangxi Emperor, mainly to study and display Western scientific and technological achievements, after the completion of the painting to enshrine a service institution in the royal family. The court art style adhered to was integrated and integrated, and finally formed the unique composition method of Beijing palace carpet - grid style.

The "grid" composition in the palace carpet pays attention to the center of the dragon, the horn clouds hugging the corners, and the periphery is trimmed with large and small edges, showing a sense of rhythm that embraces, symmetries and the center.

This pattern is rigorously composed, and the colors are mostly court yellow, rich red, and elegant blue, and embellished with colorful floral patterns, making each blanket gorgeous or elegant, without losing a sense of solemnity.

The palace pattern alkali leek is concave and convex three-dimensional, even if it is a simple pattern, after skillful hand weaving, it is also very layered.

"Beiping City Industry and Commerce Overview" records, "Guangxu 26 years, the German merchant Lude foreign company purchased two sample blankets, shipped to Dejing, the people of the capital began to know that China's carpet raw materials are fine and soft, the pattern is novel, and the color can last for a long time, so they compete to order from the bank."

Later, the beauty also knew that this kind of production was extremely excellent, and won the first prize medal at the St. Louis International Exposition, our country's carpet and competition. As a result, carpets were exported to foreign countries, and the number could reach 2 million at its peak. At the end of the Xuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was the heyday of the era. ”

From the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, the control of the last feudal dynasty gradually weakened until it died, and the palace carpet limited to the "imperial palace" became a cultural relic. The palace carpet weaving skills inherited from the palace culture and court aesthetics have survived among the people.

This Beijing-style pattern carpet has a symmetrical pattern, with traditional auspicious patterns such as double lines, ruyi, bamboo, and plum around the word "longevity", giving people a sense of stability and stability, and has a strong Chinese national cultural atmosphere. And the use of traditional Chinese blue and white color for blending, elegant and beautiful, people linger.

For today's people, if they want to appreciate the artistic style of the heyday of the Beijing Palace Carpet, the Forbidden City must be a "treasure mountain" that should not be missed.

In 2000, Michael Frances, a British expert on ancient carpets, came to Beijing to visit and wanted to see the 17 palace carpets in the photos, and the Forbidden City replied to him: not only these "seventeen" pieces, but more than 70 pieces!

When Mr. Michael Frances saw these Tibetan carpets, he was so excited that he knelt on the ground to observe them carefully, and afterwards he was even more excited to call his peers and tell them that he had seen the most complete ancient Chinese carpets in existence!

Three years later, the Forbidden City carpet once again opened the door to meticulous preservation, and this time the visitors were craftsmen who have been passed down for generations and still have the art of weaving the carpet on their hands.

Kang Yusheng, Wang Guoying, Cao Yanhong and other 8 staff members from Beijing No. 5 Carpet Factory want to study the best palace carpet in the Qing Dynasty palace, the emperor's exclusive gold silk carpet.

"How precious is this Golden Palace Blanket? In the past, when the emperor used it, he was reluctant to step on it, for fear of wearing the gold thread. Kang Yusheng is a first-class master of arts and crafts in Beijing, and a representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage "Beijing Palace Carpet Weaving Skills".

He is one of the few people who can fully master the 11 production processes of Beijing palace carpet weaving skills. He took the lead in restoring the gold silk carpet.

The gold silk carpet is mostly from the hands of Xinjiang craftsmen in that year, and the gold is inlaid with silk, which is extraordinarily magnificent, showing the grace and luxury of the royal style.

Due to the high cost of materials and complex craftsmanship, the skills handed down from the palace were conservative, and there was no weaving after the Republic of China. Such a precious and mysterious gold silk carpet is almost a legend even among professional carpet weavers.

The gold silk carpet is very different from the common palace carpet. The palace carpet weaving technique generally uses a figure-8 buckle to tie the buckle on the warp thread, and then cut the wool to form a three-dimensional thickness.

The gold carpet needs to use different disc methods to first disc the back and then the front, and use a special weaving method to "lock" the front and back parts. These two weaves are mixed on a blanket in varying thicknesses to create a unique three-dimensional effect.

"This is the third time I entered the Forbidden City, and finally observed the structure with the help of a microscope." Kang Yusheng recalled the situation back then and was full of emotion.

The common number of carpets is 90 and 120, and the more the number of threads, the finer and more elastic the texture. For example, there are 14,400 nodes with an area of about 0.1 square meters. The process of the gold carpet is more than 4 times more labor-intensive than the conventional palace carpet.

Not only that, but the gold leaf thread used in the gold carpet is not easy to obtain. The gold wire itself is easy to break and cannot be used directly for weaving. Therefore, the gold must first be hammered into a very thin gold leaf, and then the gold leaf must be wound by hand to the core of the cotton thread.

In fact, the forging process of gold foil thread is also on the verge of extinction, Kang Yusheng found Nanjing Gold Foil Factory, and the factory invited the retired master to come out of the mountain again, so as to make the gold foil thread used in the gold silk carpet.

In the 80s of the last century, it was the heyday of Beijing's carpet industry. At that time, the Beijing Carpet Company had 11 processing factories and 5,000 employees. But it was also during this period that a large number of woven carpets appeared, and the all-handmade palace carpets were greatly impacted.

After that, the original eight state-owned carpet factories in Beijing closed down one after another, leaving only two old factories. Beijing Carpet No. 5 Factory, now Beijing Huafang Carpet Art Company is one of them.

Go to visit Huafang Carpet Art Company, there are 5 kinds of blue, one white and one gold thread hanging on the wooden beam, the fine warp thread hangs down from the beam, and the carpet weaver skillfully marks the "8" buckle on the front and back two warp threads.

The weavers here still follow the original law, except for the replacement of the loom from wooden frames to steel pipes, and the scissors used for sheet scissors to electric shears, the core process of palace carpet weaving has been retained as before, and has not changed due to the advent of the mechanization era.

In the eyes of practitioners, the production cycle of the palace carpet is long, and the materials used for the gold silk carpet are very precious, so the skills are limited and cannot be produced on a large scale, so the palace carpet insists on developing in the direction of high-end handicrafts. Three copies of the "Nine Dragons" gold silk carpet were sold.

"It's not enough to have hope, making a palace blanket is a chore, and people in the city are unwilling to do it, so they have to recruit apprentices from the countryside in Shandong, Hebei and other places." Kang Yusheng took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, he had been working as a carpet weaver all his life, and his eyes were often dry and sore due to excessive fatigue.

"In the past, the carpet weaving apprentice paid attention to the 'three years and one festival', that is, three years of learning, plus a Spring Festival, before the apprentice was counted. This is just a time requirement, and some people may not be able to learn it in three years. ”

Although he has been retired for more than ten years, Kang Yusheng has always insisted on going to the factory every week to guide weaving, and he has also erected a wooden backbone at home, and still weaves for an hour every day.

In his spare time, he recorded the tapestry weaving techniques that used to be passed down only by word of mouth, and summed up the eight techniques of pressing, squeezing, padding, nailing, cutting, wedge, pouring and moistening on the tapestry skills, which have become the operating norms of the factory.

Because this factory has long become the sustenance of Kang Yusheng's life, I hope that the only place for palace carpet weaving today can continue the exquisite skills like the Qing Palace Office at that time.

One day more than 30 years ago, Zhou Xiaohan, who was in his early 20s, sat behind the counter of the Great Wall Painting and Calligraphy Society as usual, and his main job was to sell ancient carpets.

Zhou Xiaohan, a palace carpet craftsman, has a history of more than 2,000 years. In his opinion, although these ancient carpets with unique and exquisite craftsmanship are a little dilapidated, they have been preserved without knowing how many craftsmen's wisdom has been condensed, and how many gunsmoke and artillery fire have been avoided; It is no longer as simple as a blanket, but also a "living fossil of Chinese culture" and "soft gold on the ground".

However, in the eyes of the Chinese people at that time, these were just useless "rags", and most of the old carpets were taken away by foreigners at extremely low prices and flowed abroad; Zhou Xiaohan saw it in his eyes and was anxious in his heart.

In 1982, the Italian Langrenzo found a rare and beautiful ancient carpet in a guest house in southern Xinjiang, China.

The locals didn't care, and wantonly twisted cigarette butts and poured tea stains on them; Ronenzo thought it was a pity, and offered to sell him the blanket, and everyone laughed, and no one cared about the "madman".

He returned to Italy full of regrets, but he couldn't let go of this ancient carpet in his heart, and he was haunted by dreams for many nights; After the reform and opening up, Langrenzo once again traveled thousands of miles to China, taking a train from the land, then a tractor, and finally even riding a donkey, and finally found the guest house of the year.

However, the carpet was so tattered that there was no possibility of repairing it, and Renzo sighed and grieved.

It was his distress that infected Zhou Xiaohan, who also loved ancient carpets, "Foreigners have such deep feelings for Chinese carpets, and they all have such research, what do we Chinese do ourselves?" ”

In this way, Zhou Xiaohan, who became a monk halfway, went from a merchant selling carpets to a craftsman who restored and made traditional palace carpets.

Restoring ancient carpets, like restoring cultural relics, is an extremely tedious task.

Zhou Xiaohan adheres to the principle of "repairing the old as the old", and each damaged part of the blanket is not just a simple sewing, but from the color, pattern, texture, density, thickness, wear and oxidation state, the thickness and twist of the warp and weft, the thickness and fineness of the wool, the down content, etc., how to achieve the most complete and natural restoration.

Many carpets in foreign countries, foreigners do not understand the cultural significance of the patterns, do not have the same wool quality, and do not repair according to the previous process, just according to the gourd painting scoop, the result is that the repaired blanket, like a big patch, is very ugly and discordant, but also destroys its original value.

In order to protect and restore the ancient carpets more, Zhou Xiaohan traveled all over the world, almost scattered his family property, bought back those lost ancient Chinese carpets little by little, and then restored them one by one.

He consulted a large number of ancient materials, and tried to find a suitable, more broken fragment of an old carpet to repair each damage.

You know, old carpets have 4,900 buckles per square foot! Carefully cut off one by one according to the texture, and then carefully thread it according to the pattern, and a small piece of blanket will have to be repaired for more than a month!

Such a long time of repetitive, boring movements, often tired and dizzy, without exquisite skills and full concentration, it is impossible to complete.

Even Xu Yajun couldn't help but sigh when he saw it: "This is really a huge project!" However, in Zhou Xiaohan's view: the restoration of cultural relics is not costly.

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