Preserving Nanjing Yunjin Brocade Traditions
When I saw Jin Wen in the Chinese folk culture inheritance demonstration center, he was explaining to nine young students the ancient formulas to produce Yunjin brocade, "The phoenix has ‘three long’: long eyes, long legs, long tails...”. These are precious experiences compiled by old craftspeople in Nanjing dialect.
In the Chinese tradition of weaving Nanjing Yunjin brocade, two craftspeople operate the upper and lower parts of a large, complicated loom to produce textiles incorporating fine materials such as silk, gold and peacock feather yarn. The technique was once used to produce dragon robe and crown costume.
Today, it is still used to make high-end attire and souvenirs.
Nanjing Yunjin wood machine makeup flowers hand weaving skills is the representative of China ancient brocade skills at the highest level. In 2006, it was included the first batch cement production line of Chinese intangible cultural heritage list. In 2009, it was successfully selected United Nations "human representative of the intangible cultural heritage list".
Jin Wen's Mastery of Yunjin Brocade Craft
Jin Wen is the representative inheritor of this skill. The craftsmanship of making Yunjin brocade can be subdivided into no less than a hundred kinds. Jin roughly summarized it into five step: drafting patterns, creating of jacquard cards for programming weaving patterns, manufacturing looms, preparing raw material and weaving itself.
Jacquard weaving is the core of this craftsmanship. Jin explains it in the current popular computer language.
The Jacquard weaving method was the software while the dermatoglyphic patterns were the programs wrote by the ancient method of rope hitching. The upper worker keyed on the “keyboard” while the lower one followed the “screen” to flower it. It not only expresses the delicate changes of the pattern on each thread, but also combines the complex colors to the greatest extent. The patterns and colors will be combined into a programming language that can be understood by the weavers.
The raw materials of Yunjin are also fastidious. It takes two strands of the warp to be relatively firm. The weft has velvet in addition to the bottom weft, which needs to be polished. The most distinctive gold thread requires more than a dozen processes to. Yunjin also has a special peacock feather thread, which is made of peacock feathers after color separation, twisting, and preservation.
Jin Wen tells us that Yunjin brocade can be roughly divided into Ku Silk Fabrics, Ku Brocade Fabrics and Zhuanghua Silk Fabrics. Zhuanghua Silk Fabrics technique is the most complicated among them. The craftspeople need to splice an indefinite number of colored velvet weft tubes into weft threads, and to make a partial makeup on the pattern. In this way, the dozens of flowers in the whole fabric can be completely different colors and materials, which makes the fabric look very graceful and luxurious.
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period,Nanjing's weaving industry, which once had 300,000 practitioners, declined or even disappeared due to the war. Until 1955, in order to resume the production of Yunjin, the Nanjing Handicraft Administration at the time publicly recruited apprentices. Only two veteran artists over half a hundred years old were able to be teachers in Nanjing. Jin Wen also entered this area in 1973.
It can't be learned in a day or two.
The looms of Yunjin brocade are generally Dahualou wooden jacquard looms, which are large in size and require the harmonious cooperation of the skillful florists and weavers. If a novice is not familiar with the loom, it will be difficult to control, "loom is like a cow or horse", and it requires not only hard work, but also a rich understanding.
Since the weaving of Yunjin brocade is a "teamwork", the florist keeps sending new flowers, and the weaver underneath has to weave with his hands while matching the colors in his mind.
For a piece of Zhuanghua Silk Fabrics, the color it uses can be as many as twenty or thirty. Craftspeople are very free to match them and proceed according to their own preferences, as long as they are complex but not chaotic, unified and harmonious. It requires the aesthetic taste of color matching. “Coordination” is the key. Chinese described it as “the collection of meat and vegetables” which is not exactly the same as the “warm and cool color theory” in western paintings.
Human creativity can never be replaced by machines. After studying diligently and practicing a lot, Jin Wen quickly mastered a complete set of traditional craftsmanship of Yunjin brocade. Since then, he has carried out a systematic research on ancient Chinese brocade and contemporary brocade techniques in various regions. His most brilliant achievement is the successful reproduction of the golden peacock feather and gauze dragon robe of the Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty in 1984.
Jin Wen's Year-Long Journey to Revive Dragon Robe Craftsmanship
The technique of making dragon robes had been interrupted for many years. No one dared to take over this task, because if they make any mistakes, the extremely expensive materials would be wasted. At this time, Jin Wen resolutely stepped up and took on this arduous task, and began to explore and restore the craftsmanship of dragon robe.
It takes a whole year for Jin to weaving a dragon robe while the gown material is divided into four pieces. The so-called "seamless clothes" means that all patterns have to be completely consistent. Nanjing has four distinct seasons, and silk has different shrinkage rates under different humidity, so stitching the flowers is the most difficult part of the weaving process. However, he finally overcame the difficulties and copied it successfully, and therefore won the "Treasure Award" of the 3rd National Arts and Crafts Hundred Flowers Award. This work is now in the collection of China Art Museum.
Nowadays, Jin Wen continues to spread the culture of Yunjin to the society and teaches people who want to inherit the skills. At the same time, he is still constantly innovating and creating. Jin said that Yunjin used to be luxury goods and exclusive for the royal family. To be promoted to market, it has to be based on tradition, and then absorb modern elements for innovative design. "I hope our Chinese intangible cultural heritage can be passed on."
