In China's 5,000 years of history and culture, there are many excellent national traditional crafts worth tasting and inheriting, which were born under the background of a specific era, and have been passed down for thousands of years by virtue of the vitality given by their own cultural heritage, and are still rejuvenating today.
The inheritance of excellent national traditional crafts is inseparable from the dedication of every craftsman for decades, and they devote their time and energy to these traditional crafts, so that we can still see these unique treasures of the Chinese nation thousands of years later.
Hangzhou embroidery with a history of 4,000 years is one of China's outstanding national traditional crafts, this embroidery process reached its peak in the Southern Song Dynasty, when Hangzhou prospered, the production of silk, the prosperity of the silk industry, promoted the development of embroidery technology.
According to records, the first elbow embroidery scissors in the history of Chinese embroidery came from Hangzhou.
76-year-old Hangzhou embroidery master Zhao Yijun from the age of 13 began to contact the traditional craft of Hangzhou embroidery, 63 years has always poured his love into this craft, insisted on embroidery for 8 hours a day, with their own creativity and perseverance to create a masterpiece of Hangzhou embroidery worthy of being handed down to the world.
Contact Hangzhou embroidery
Zhao Yijun is a native of Hangzhou, in 1959, 13-year-old Zhao Yijun finished primary school, family conditions made him unable to continue his studies, but to change the direction of life.
In order to be able to get an education when solving economic problems, Zhao Yijun chose to study in a school of arts and crafts in Hangzhou, which was established in 1960, and set up the teaching of four handicrafts in the school, so that students from poor families can work and study part-time, not only to learn cultural knowledge, but also to master a craft.
Zhao Yijun, who decided to enter the arts and crafts school to study, first chose the wood carving major he was more interested in, and then filled in the embroidery major as his second choice.
Just in time for the Hangzhou official to vigorously promote Hangzhou embroidery, all the students who filled in the embroidery as a volunteer were directly assigned to the embroidery major. In this way, 13-year-old Zhao Yijun began to learn embroidery by mistake, and he did not expect that he would indulge in this craft and devote his life to it.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou embroidery was divided into "court embroidery" and "folk embroidery", of which "court embroidery" was specially embroidered for various costumes in the inner courtyard of the palace, while "folk embroidery" was mainly embroidered official uniforms, quilts, screens, wall hangings and other common items in life.
The categories of Hangzhou embroidery are very rich, and the embroidery categories such as angjin embroidery, gold embroidery, silver thread embroidery, and colored silk embroidery have continued to hang embroidery. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Hangzhou embroidery still has a strong vitality, at that time there were as many as two or three hundred craftsmen who were good at embroidery in Hangzhou. With its changeable embroidery method and unique style, Hangzhou embroidery was rated as the first batch of intangible cultural heritage projects in Hangzhou and the third batch of intangible cultural heritage projects in Zhejiang Province.
Zhao Yijun began to learn Hangzhou embroidery when the embroidery industry was vigorously supported, there were more than 30 students in the embroidery class at that time, but Zhao Yijun also only had six male classmates, their head teacher "Shen Needle" Zhang Jinfa, was the only inheritor of Hangzhou embroidery "palace embroidery" at that time. Zhang Jin sent these children who were generally young to teach Hangzhou embroidery, just to let Hangzhou embroidery be passed on.
However, Hangzhou embroidery is famous for its complex stitches, flat embroidery, chaotic needle embroidery, overlapping embroidery, paste embroidery, borrowing bottom embroidery, hair embroidery, bead embroidery, help embroidery, point embroidery, weaving embroidery, net embroidery, yarn embroidery and other complex embroidery methods are a big challenge for the students who were still young at that time.
Moreover, Hangzhou embroidery is not only a simple embroidery, but also requires the maker to design the composition, configure the silk thread, and depict the draft, and the process of completing a work is very difficult, which is also the reason why Hangzhou embroidery is exquisite, but gradually declined.
Decades of persistent embroidery
Training day in and day out was too difficult for teenagers, and many of his classmates had needle-pierced wounds on their hands, and so did Zhao Yijun.
But he has strengthened his confidence that since he wants to learn, he will learn well, even if his hand has been injured, he insists on practicing, and sometimes he has been out of school, but the content that needs to be practiced has not been completed, and Zhao Yijun will stay alone in the classroom to practice embroidery.
The head teacher Zhang Jinfa originally wanted to find the inheritor of "palace embroidery" among these children, and when he saw Zhao Yijun working so hard, he gradually began to focus on cultivating him.
Zhang Jinfa's teaching is severe, any student in the embroidery class does not meet his requirements, will be directly destroyed and re-embroidered, in such a high-intensity study and practice environment, many students can not stand the hard work of learning embroidery, quit the embroidery class.
However, Zhao Yijun found joy in embroidery, and gradually changed from practicing embroidery for a livelihood to truly falling in love with embroidery.
Zhao Yijun, who originally liked painting, also found his love in Hangzhou embroidery, as time passed little by little, more than 30 classmates who studied together at the beginning have given up Hangzhou embroidery, only Zhao Yijun is still insisting on learning, he has been following the teacher Zhang Jinfa until he graduated from college before he really became a teacher.
Within a few years of Zhao Yijun's departure, his mentor Zhang Jinfa died. The master and apprentice once completed a painting "Sakyamuni" together, this Hangzhou embroidery work Zhao Yijun has been hanging in his home, reminding himself of his teacher's teachings and motivating himself to practice every day.
After the death of the teacher, Zhao Yijun became the only inheritor of Hangzhou embroidery "court embroidery", took over the task of Hangzhou embroidery inheritance, he always wanted to do his best to complete a masterpiece of Hangzhou embroidery worthy of collection and circulation, which has become the greatest wish in his heart.
Zhao Yijun and the Meditation Diagram
After a long period of study, Zhao Yijun determined that the theme he wanted to embroider was related to Buddhist culture, but at this time, at the age of 51, he was knocked down on the hospital bed by a menacing serious illness, and there was no way to pick up a needle.
Zhao Yijun didn't want to give up just like that, but began to lie on his hospital bed and prepare for the magnum opus he wanted to complete, and he began to study a large number of Buddhist scriptures, while picking up needles as much as he could and practicing consistently.
Zhao Yijun set himself the goal of embroidering for eight hours a day, in order to complete the final work, he lay on the hospital bed and embroidered "Xuanzang Westward Journey", "Puxian Bodhisattva" and many other Buddhist cultural theme works, he embroidered what he read from the Buddhist scriptures into one work after another, in this way to improve his embroidery skills and understanding of the theme he wanted to complete.
Even though he had completed many beautiful works on his hospital bed, Zhao Yijun was still not satisfied, he knew that his works were still far from his goal, so he just insisted on practicing day after day.
It wasn't until after repeated practice that Zhao Yijun officially began the final work of the draft, color matching, stretching, drawing, splitting, gold, silver and other processes.
After the official start, Zhao Yijun still insisted on embroidering for eight hours a day, from repeatedly changing the manuscript to forgetting to sleep and forget to eat, he devoted all his energy to this work.
Finally, 17 years later, Zhao Yijun completed the embroidery work of 184 cm high and 167 cm wide, he used the technique of front and back double-sided embroidery, the front contains 532 figures, the picture is the Buddha in front of the palace to explain the scriptures, the magnificent scene of all beings listening to the scriptures, and the back is embroidered with 7221 words of the full text of the Buddha Sutra of Amitayus.
Zhao Yijun named his work "Viewing the Scriptures", this work is his 17 years of painstaking work, in which he poured all his efforts, from the artistic value of this work, it can be sold for tens of millions of prices.
But Zhao Yijun does not plan to sell this work, he hopes that this masterpiece can bring the craft of Hangzhou embroidery to more people, so that more people can understand and learn this traditional craft.
Brief summary:
Today's Zhao Yijun is 76 years old, and his whole life has been contributing to the inheritance and development of Hangzhou embroidery.
In order to inherit the skills of Hangzhou embroidery, the Hangzhou Municipal Government opened a studio for Zhao Yijun in Qianjiang College of Hangzhou Normal University, and Hangzhou embroidery was also included in the undergraduate course of art product design.
Mr. Zhao Yijun wrote a new textbook for Hangzhou embroidery, so that Hangzhou embroidery can enter the classroom and life.