Nanjing Yunjin is named after its beauty and splendor like clouds in the sky, and it is one of the treasures of national traditional arts and crafts. A poem by wucun Mei is used to describe Nanjing Yunjin: "The south of the Yangtze River is good, the loom excels in nature, the peacock's makeup is rotten, and ice silkworm spits out the phoenix and fog, which is a new kind of small dragon." Nanjing Yunjin is a traditional jacquard silk handicraft in Nanjing, and it is the first of the "three treasures" of Nanjing craft. There are as many as 18 kinds of colors in Nanjing Yunjin, and the main flowers are introduced layer by layer by using "color halo". They are rich and elegant, solid in texture, rich and beautiful in patterns, rich and solemn in colors, and a large number of gold threads are used to form a magnificent and unique style. Because of the exquisite materials, fine weavers and elegant and rich patterns, it is called "Yunjin" because it is as magnificent as a colorful cloud in the sky. Modern only Nanjing production, often called "Nanjing Yunjin". It has a history of 158 years. Nanjing Yunjin is also known as the "Four Famous Brochures in China" with Shu Brochure in Chengdu, Song Brochure in Suzhou and Zhuang Brochure in Guangxi (it is also known as the "Two Famous Brochures" with Suzhou Silk).
In ancient silk fabrics, brocade represents the highest technical level. The word "Jin" is a combination of the word "Jin" and the word "Silk". Interpretation of the Name and the Collection of Silk: "Jin, Jin also. Hard work is heavy, and its price is like gold. Therefore, only the honorable person can be served. " That is to say, brocade is a luxurious and precious silk, which only dignitaries could afford in ancient times.
[ Edit this paragraph] Historical development
The emergence and development of Nanjing brocade is closely related to the urban history of Nanjing. The silk industry in Nanjing can be traced back to the period of Soochow in the Three Kingdoms (222-28). At the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-42), after the Northern Expedition of Emperor Wu of Song, all the workers in Chang 'an were moved to Jiankang (now Nanjing), among which brocade craftsmen accounted for a large proportion. Brocade craftsmen in the post-Qin dynasty inherited the brocade skills of ethnic minorities in the Han Dynasty, Cao Wei, Western Jin Dynasty and the early Sixteen Countries. In 417, the Eastern Jin Dynasty set up the brocade department in Jiankang, which was regarded as the symbol of the formal birth of Nanjing brocade. Since the Yuan Dynasty, Yunjin has been a special product for royal clothing. In the Ming Dynasty, the brocade technology became more and more mature and perfect, and the local characteristics of Nanjing silk jacquard brocade were formed. Cao Yin, the grandfather of Cao Xueqin, the author of A Dream of Red Mansions, worked as a weaver in Jiangning for 2 years. During this period, there were many kinds of brocade, solemn patterns and gorgeous colors, which represented the highest achievement of Nanjing brocade weaving technology in history.
At its peak, Nanjing Yunjin weaving had more than 3, looms, and nearly 3, people made a living from it and related industries, which was the largest handicraft industry in Nanjing at that time. After 1949, although the government has invested tens of millions of yuan to restore and protect Yunjin, Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute has also successfully scientifically copied the plain gauze clothes unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province in the 197s, and the Ming Wanli Emperor's "Weaving Golden Peacock Feather, Decorating Flower and Yarn Dragon Robe" unearthed from Dingling of the Ming Tombs in Beijing, but Yunjin still faces the situation of no successor. Now there are only more than 5 people in the country who really understand Yunjin technology.
Yunjin used to be used exclusively by the court or as a gift to a hero. Modern Yunjin inherited the traditional styles of Ming and Qing Dynasties and developed. Traditional varieties include makeup flowers, kujin and kusatin (see "makeup flowers", "kujin" and "kusatin"). Kujin and kujin were named after being woven in Qing Dynasty and imported into the "satin library" of the Ministry of Interior, and they are still in use today. Makeup fabrics are varieties representing the technical characteristics and styles of Yunjin. The pattern layout is rigorous and solemn, and the pattern modeling is concise and generalized. Most of them are large-scale full patterns arranged continuously in four directions. There are also large-scale makeup fabrics (such as robes in Ming and Qing dynasties, kang mattresses and mats, etc.) that are completely single and suitable for patterns. The colors are rich and bright, and the decorative patterns are often edged with gold thread or gold and silver thread, and they are transited by white or halo. After 1949, on the basis of traditional varieties, we innovated varieties, such as Yuhua brocade, Dunhuang brocade, gold and silver makeup, Lingjin, decorative brocade, tablecloth and cushion, to meet the needs of Mongolian and Tibetan brothers' clothing, painting and calligraphy mounting, tourist souvenirs and foreign trade.
At present, few people know about Yunjin, even Nanjing people. There are even fewer books about Yunjin. Yunjin in Nanjing, China, published by Nanjing Publishing House, can not only satisfy the curiosity of viewers, but also serve as a desk book for Yunjin researchers. Mr. Li Xifan, a famous redologist, praised this book for "fully showing the beauty of Yunjin".
Nowadays, Yunjin is not only exported to high-grade clothing fabrics and costumes for ethnic minorities and performances, but also developed new varieties of colors, such as Yunjin tablecloths, cushions, quilts, bags, vest, ties, hanging screens and other daily handicrafts.
[ Edit this paragraph] Successful application for heritage
The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. In 21, Nanjing Yunjin officially declared the oral and intangible heritage of mankind, ranking behind Guqin. On May 2th, 26, Nanjing Yunjin Wood Machine Makeup Hand-weaving Technology was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. On June 8, 27, Jiangsu Jinwen Yunjin Celebrity Studio won the first Cultural Heritage Day Award issued by the Ministry of Culture.
[ Edit this paragraph] Unique craft
The birth of Yunjin should be attributed to Suzhou silk reeling, which is actually an accessory derived from Suzhou silk reeling. Nanjing Yunjin has a unique craft. Weaving with the old-fashioned flower-lifting machine must be completed by jacquard workers and weavers, and two people can only produce 5-6 cm a day. So far, this craft can not be replaced by machines. The main feature of Yunjin is different colors from flower to flower. From different angles of Yunjin, the colors of flowers on embroidery are different. Because it is used in royal clothing, Yunjin often uses exquisite materials in weaving, and strives for perfection at the expense of work. Yunjin likes to weave Yunjin with gold thread, silver thread, copper wire, filament and spun silk, and all kinds of bird and animal feathers. For example, the green color on the royal Yunjin embroidery is made of peacock feathers, and each pattern of Yunjin has its specific meaning. If you want to weave a brocade with a width of 78 cm, there are 14, silk threads on its weaving surface, and the composition of all flower patterns will shuttle through these 14, threads. The whole process is as complicated and arduous as programming a computer.
Nanjing Yunjin has excellent skills and profound cultural and artistic implications. Colorful, harmonious halo, ethnic patterns, strange changes, natural. It has a distinctive deep foundation of auspicious culture in China. The dragon robes of the emperor represent the symbolic power of deifying the "son of heaven" and "emperor". The twelve chapters of "Sun, Moon, Stars, Mountains, Dragons, Chinese Insects, Zong Yi, Algae, Fire, Fenmi, Fu, Fu" are all symbolic of the imperial power of "All over the world, is it imperial land, commanding all directions and supreme". The decorative patterns of auspicious birds, auspicious beasts and wishful clouds, which combine realistic simulation with freehand brushwork, as well as the auspicious implication patterns and combination patterns of cultural and artistic shapes such as pictographic, homophonic, figurative and borrowed patterns are no exception. The pattern of Yunjin expresses the design idea of the core theme of auspicious culture in China: "power, happiness, wealth, longevity, happiness and wealth", which expresses people's desire for happiness and enthusiasm. This is that Nanjing Yunjin pattern clothing not only has the value of rare treasures and expensive historical relics, but also is a national cultural symbol of elegance, popularity and good luck.
[ Edit this paragraph] Main uses
Nanjing Yunjin is one of the most luxurious and exquisite arts and crafts in the application fields of robes and crowns used by the royal family in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, ladies' clothes worn by officials and literati, and folk imperial clan, festive and wedding costumes. It combines the decorative and beautification features of silk (material and texture), harmonious colors and sentimental patterns, and combines the content and form of "quality and pattern", "skill and art" and "meaning and image" to achieve the aesthetic feeling of science and technology and literature and art, which are perfect and unified. Judging from the variety of brocade and the essence of its aesthetic artistic concept, it can be summarized into three forms of beauty: the beauty of court and royal family is the beauty of elegance and luxury; The beauty of scholar-officials and patriarchs of Confucian scholars is the beauty of expressing lyricism and elegance; The beauty of folk festive etiquette is the beauty of pure folk customs combined with practicality and magnificence. Therefore, the unique beauty of instrument decoration of Yunjin makeup flowers can adapt to people's enjoyment of the elegant artistic value of aesthetic sentiment. This is the artistic style of the unity of truth, goodness and beauty in Yunjin's works, which represents the fashion and folklore of national costume culture and is also evidence of one of the world-wide historical and cultural heritages.
On the stage of traditional drama in China, whenever emperors, princes, princesses and princesses appear, their dazzling costumes will always make people's eyes shine. They effectively contrast the characters and render the plot atmosphere. These elegant theatrical costumes are based on the costumes of emperors' empresses, high-ranking ladies and their daughters in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and are made through artistic processing. And many of the costumes of these ancient emperors were sewn with Nanjing Yunjin. Therefore, the finished products of "Nanjing Yunjin" are also marked with a deep "class brand". Emperor's clothing embodies the concept of "divine right of kingship". Emperors of past dynasties claimed to be the "real dragon emperor", who was ordered by heaven to come to the world and rule all beings, so they used the image of the legendary beast "dragon" in their costumes in large numbers, and non-emperors were not allowed to use it to show that they were in the world and were the only ones.
[ Edit this paragraph] Beautiful Legend
Xianhe Street is located at the northwest end of Qinhuai River Xinqiao in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, starting from Jiqing Road in the south and reaching Xianhe Bridge in the north. As the name implies, the origin of this street name is related to the beautiful and noble crane, and the touching legend about it is widely circulated among the people.
An "old Nanjing" vividly told reporters about the legend he heard from his ancestors. According to legend, there was a lonely hut in the west of ancient Nanjing, where lived an old artist who worked for the rich man. His name was Zhang Yong. Every day when the rooster crows for the first time, Zhang Yong starts to get off the machine pit and brocade, and he has to be busy until midnight. A year later, the sweat dripped dry, the tears flowed out, and the woven brocade was like a long river. But the rich man, in turn, said that Zhang Yong owed him more debts. On one occasion, the treasurer celebrated his birthday, forcing Zhang Yong to weave a brocade hanging screen of "Song Ling He Shou". Zhang Yong had to drag his skinny body out of the machine pit and throw the shuttle across the pipe to weave brocade. The poor old man is white-haired and has no strength! It took five and a half inches to weave the lamp oil overnight. Seeing that the rich man was coming to force the goods, the old man was so anxious that he was in tears. He stretched out his hands and sighed bitterly to himself facing the towering mountain outside the door: "Empress Yunjin, people say that you are the fairy who bless our poor brocade. Now the rich man is forcing us poor people to death. How can you from ruin ..." Zhang Yong was so tired that he fainted at the loom before he finished speaking.
At this moment, the colorful clouds on the mountain suddenly opened up, shining with thousands of golden lights. Then the clouds fluttered and the wind rustled, and Zhang Yongjia's door creaked open. Two beautiful girls came in. They helped Zhang Yong to bed and sat down in the machine pit to weave brocade skillfully. At the moment, the loom rang and the pattern was on the brocade.
It's almost dawn. When Zhang Yong wakes up from a coma, he sees a room full of golden light. One girl is swinging a shuttle brocade in the machine pit quickly, and the other is sitting on the flower floor, pulling flowers. He asked quickly, "Who are you?" The girls pointed to the clouds in the sky. Zhang Yong looked down their hands and saw ten thousand rosy clouds. Looking back, the two girls were gone, leaving only the brocade woven on the machine shining. The pattern on the brocade is like a fairyland. The pines are lush and the springs are clear. The two lifelike cranes are very bright with red blood.
Zhang Yong happily rolled the brocade under the machine, but I didn't expect this magical brocade to be pulled one after another like a waterfall on the mountain, rolling one horse after another, and it could never be pulled out and rolled up. All the neighbors came to see the strangeness.
While everyone was in high spirits, the rich man came with a bunch of thugs rushing to collect debts. With a fork in his waist and a wave of his hand, the thugs rushed to grab this magical brocade machine like a tiger. Zhang Yong refused to rely on it, clinging to the loom and refusing to let it go. The vicious rich man kicked the old and sick Zhang Yong to the ground, and the old artist suddenly vomited blood and passed out. Too many cooks, a dozen thugs here, wanted to carry the loom away, but the wooden brocade machine, which weighs dozens of pounds at ordinary times, was made of copper and iron at the moment, so he could not move it. The rich man was in a hurry. He stretched out his hand to pull the brocade on the loom, but he heard a bang. The wooden shuttle of the brocade seemed to be alive, jumped up and chased the rich man hard, making him cry and scream. The thugs who became angry from embarrassment burned the house angrily. At this moment, there was a loud thunder in the sky, and the rainstorm poured down, dousing the fire and cleaning the sky.
when the rich man and the thugs look bad, they turn around and want to escape. At this moment, two cranes on the brocade suddenly flew out with a long roar, circled Zhang Yongfei twice, fanned their wings twice, and the old artist suddenly sat up radiant. Two cranes chased the rich man again, pouncing on his face and pecking hard, and the rich man screamed with pain. When all the people from Zhang Yonghe arrived, they saw the sky full of red clouds, the golden light wheel flickering on the top of the high mountain outside the city, and two beautiful cranes dancing. Everyone cheered with one voice, only the rich man covered his face in a ghostly cry, but his eyes were pecked blind by the crane.
Later, it was said that the two beautiful girls who helped Zhang Yong weave brocade that night were the two fairies around Empress Yunjin, who came to the world to help the poor rectify their old wealth on orders from Empress Yunjin. In order to commemorate Empress Yunjin, people named the street where Zhang Yong lived "Xianhe Street".
[ Edit this paragraph] Contemporary Descendants
Jin Wen has been engaged in the research and production of Yunjin since 1973, and devoted his life to the inheritance and protection of this traditional craft. In the view of Master Jin Wen, Yunjin culture is one of the representatives of the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation. Therefore, in the eyes of Master Jin, every pattern, pattern, even every thread of Yunjin craft is soaked with the historical and cultural heritage of the Chinese nation for many years. Appreciating Yunjin's works is not only to appreciate her rich and gorgeous surface patterns and exquisite craftsmanship, but also to appreciate the subsequent cultural characteristics through her. For example, the brocade "One-product Kirin Supplement" designed and created by Master Jin Da shows an auspicious animal-Kirin in the ancient legend of China. Its external shape is moose, oxtail, horseshoe (called "wolf's hoof" in historical records), fish scale skin, a corner, and meat at the corner end, yellow. In ancient legends, Kirin was called "the benevolent beast". There is a lot of grass around the unicorn in Yunjin's works, but there is nothing at the foot of the unicorn. This is because the unicorn has an important character of "not breaking grass and not killing creatures", that is, the living grass is not trampled, let alone people. There is a contradiction. Kirin is a military attache. How can a military attache not kill people? However, China's traditional culture is to cherish life, to "convince people with virtue" and to defeat the enemy with wisdom and ingenuity, just like Zhuge Liang's "seven captures of Meng Huo", not by force, but by ingenuity and morality. Legend has it that Confucius' mother dreamed of Kirin and gave birth to Confucius. So there is the saying that "Kirin gives the child", and all the gifts are pillars. Therefore, "Kirin to send children" has become a kind of good wish of "early birth of your son, virtuous children and grandchildren" When Wu Zetian was in the Tang Dynasty, Kirin was embroidered on the robe, which was called "Kirin robe"