CCTV News: Originated in Sichuan, Shu brocade has a history of thousands of years, because of brocade, Chengdu also has a beautiful name called "Jincheng", along with the city's rivers, streets, and buildings have also been branded with "brocade". In 2006, "Shu brocade weaving technology" was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in China. In 2009, UNESCO inscribed "traditional Chinese mulberry silk weaving techniques", including "Shu brocade weaving techniques", on the "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity".
Recently, the "Splendid Western Regions and the Same Wind - Xinjiang Silk Road Culture Special Exhibition" was held in Chengdu Jinsha Site Museum, which also creatively demonstrated the Silk Road cultural exchanges with Shu brocade as the medium.
"Lingyang Gong Sample" is a typical pattern in Shu brocade, which was created by Dou Shilun, a silk weaving craftsman in the Tang Dynasty, on the basis of the traditional Shu brocade weaving art, and absorbing the decorative characteristics of Persia and Sogdia. "Lingyang Gong Sample" is a kind of pattern with flowers as a ring and animal themes, which is very complex and is a treasure among ancient Chinese silk fabrics.
Zhao Na, a librarian of the exhibition department of Chengdu Jinsha Ruins Museum, said that many of today's ruins in the Turpan area have found a lot of patterns of this Lingyang public sample. In the display case, two typical works of Lingyang public samples are exhibited, one is a lion pattern brocade with a treasure flower group, and the other is a peacock pattern brocade with a single peony. This pattern comes from the tomb of Yelu Yuzhi, an official of the Liao Dynasty, which shows that the "Lingyang Gong Sample" has been well inherited after the Tang Dynasty.
Shu brocade is one of the four famous brocades in China, originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, flourished in the Han and Tang Dynasties, because of its heavy cultural and artistic connotation and unique technology, after thousands of years. The production process of Shu brocade traditional weaving skills is complicated, from the program, it is necessary to go through the pattern design, the point of view, the flower knot, the installation, weaving and other important links, each procedure involves a unique skill.
On the first floor of the Shu Brocade Embroidery Museum, a small Hualou wooden loom from the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty is at work, in stark contrast to the huge machine, the silk thread on the machine is thinner than the hair. The two masters who cooperate tacitly and skillfully work 8 hours a day, and can only weave 7-8 cm of normal weft dense brocade every day.
Cao Daiwu, the provincial inheritor of Shu brocade intangible cultural heritage and the master of arts and crafts in Sichuan Province, introduced that this "Eight Answers Halo Brocade" as an example, as a whole, is red, called the background color. The bottom brocade is red brocade, but there are blue, green, and yellow on it, and it is actually presented by the color of the weft of the shuttle, which is called the weft brocade.
This year's 57-year-old Cao Daiwu was born in Chengdu Shu Jin Factory, since he was a child to study with his father Cao Fusheng, at the age of eight or nine to learn the traditional skills of Shu Jin. Shu brocade has been inherited for thousands of years, and it is the spiritual inheritance of generations of handicraft craftsmen. Cao Daiwu, who has been engaged in the cause of Shu brocade for more than 40 years, has successively brought more than ten apprentices.
On the basis of abiding by the tradition, the inheritors of Shu brocade are also innovating the process design and warp and weft color matching of Shu brocade weaving. To this day, the art is still alive and well.
In 2023, at the 31st Summer Universiade held in Chengdu, the medal ribbon will use Shu brocade craftsmanship, showing the world the unique charm of Shu brocade, China's intangible cultural heritage.
(Source: New Gansu)