Threading a path through time

Craftswoman dedicates her life to revitalizing traditional embroidery by re-creating masterpieces, Yang Feiyue reports.

Snow-white woven silk, colorful threads and silver needles were flying under the dexterous hands of Wang Suhua at her home in late January.

The woman from Kaifeng, Central China's Henan province, was trying to use Bian embroidery to restore a scene from Qianli Jiangshan Tu (A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains), a masterpiece by the painter Wang Ximeng of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

In the wake of Wang Suhua's dancing fingertips, intricate patterns of flowers, birds, fish, insects and vast landscapes of mountains and rivers emerge on the brocade.

Delivering a piece of Bian embroidery requires a dozen steps, including material selection, framing, stretching, thread matching, embroidery, and then the finishing touches.

"For material selection, one must choose satin fabric colors and specifications according to the embroidery design, and there cannot be any flaws, however slight," Wang Suhua says.

"The fabric to be embroidered also has to be fixed on the frame, the size of which should be based on the size of the work, and it must be tightened just right to keep the fabric surface flat," she adds.

Those requirements are necessary to ensure the final work is smooth, bright and clean.

"Each step must be carried out meticulously and perfectly, which requires years of experience."

Bian embroidery, also known as Song embroidery, is one of the five well-known Chinese embroideries and on a par with its Su (Suzhou), Xiang (Hunan), Shu (Sichuan) and Yue (Guangdong) counterparts.

It boasts a long history stretching back more than 800 years.

Hundreds of outstanding women practitioners of the art once gathered at Wenxiuyuan, an institute of embroidery, which dates back to the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).At the time, Kaifeng was called Bianjing and was the dynastic capital, as depicted in Dongjing Meng Hua Lu (Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital) written by Meng Yuanlao of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279).

Those women embroidered elegant robes, uniforms, hats and boots for emperors, princesses, dignitaries and nobles, so the embroidery was associated with the imperial court or official roles.

The embroidery art has its own unique strength of being able to express the same aesthetics as traditional painting. Multiple threads and needlework can be applied to bring to life the image of even a small flower.

The establishment of the embroidery institute in ancient China enabled many skilled embroiderers from different regions to learn and exchange techniques, which led to the greater development of Bian embroidery.

During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, who was known as a weak ruler but an excellent artist, the institute established a department that specialized in the artistic creation of landscapes, buildings, figures, flowers and birds in Bian works. Corresponding production, training and management systems also took shape, bringing Bian embroidery to maturity.

However, Bian embroidery's development hit a low ebb in Kaifeng when the Song moved the capital from Kaifeng to Hangzhou, in today's Zhejiang province, in the 12th century.

The traditional art was, at that time, confined to a select few.

But recovery was at hand. Several generations of those few Bian embroiderers have today examined techniques from the Song Dynasty and come up with more than 30 embroidery methods of that time.

They have proved extremely vivid and meticulous in portraying human figures and excel in depicting landscapes of mountains and rivers.

With local government backing, several people established the Kaifeng Bian embroidery plant in 1956 to carry forward the traditional craftsmanship.

Born into a rural family in Kaifeng in 1935, Wang Suhua was exposed to the charm of embroidery as a child.

Many girls and young women were engaged in embroidery work in the village and she learned by watching them closely.

"I was especially intrigued by the embroidered patterns on the quilts made by my grandmother and mother for our neighbors' weddings when I was about 10," she recalls.

Seeing her enthusiasm, her mother gave her a pair of black cotton-padded shoes to play with and she surprised everyone, and herself, by embroidering a cotton rose on them.

It was almost like fate that she passed the test and became an embroiderer at the Kaifeng Bian embroidery plant in 1957.

It gave full play to her passion and drove her to study and practice Bian embroidery even more intensively. In the space of eight months, she was promoted to the position of director at the production workshop.

In 1958, Wang Suhua took on the challenging task of embroidering the classic long-scroll painting, Qingming Shanghe Tu (Along the River During the Qingming Festival), by painter Zhang Zeduan from the Song Dynasty, for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China the following year.

She immediately led a team to scour local neighborhoods in search of old Bian embroidery pieces and to uncover more traditional needlework methods to better present the complexity of the painting, which features hundreds of characters and trees, as well as numerous livestock, ships, bridges and buildings.

Whenever she had time, she went to the countryside to observe the exact color of donkeys, the shape of cattle, and the habits of camels. She also went to the Yellow River several times to experience life on the water, to see how many strands were in the ropes the boatmen used and how they wound them. When she saw birds' nests in the trees, she would look up and observe them for a while, examining their structure, materials and colors.

Wang Suhua also went to Beijing to see the authentic painting and examine its details at close quarters.

"To embroider high-quality works, it's essential to pay attention to the details and study them carefully," Wang Suhua says.

For the following three-and-a-half months, she and her teammates worked through one problem after another by integrating traditional Bian embroidering methods with a dozen new approaches.

Various techniques were used to create three-dimensional and lifelike effects, particularly on elements such as the tiles on the cowshed roof, the ropes on the ships and the branches of the willow trees, she explains.

The work was then displayed in the Henan hall at the Great Hall of the People and later collected by the National Museum of China. Wang Suhua was also invited to watch the national 10th anniversary celebration in 1959.

More than seven decades of Bian embroidering experience have enabled Wang Suhua to develop a strong personal style.

"My basic expectations for every embroidery work are soft and elegant colors, exquisite craftsmanship, clear layering, and vivid and lifelike presentation," she says.

Wang Suhua opened her own Bian embroidery school in 1990 right after retirement.

She says she wants to give back to society with the skills she acquired and help more girls and young women make a living through Bian embroidery.

She looks for girls and young women from poor families, or those who have been laid off, as well as people with disabilities, and offers them free training and accommodation.

She has held nothing back and imparted all of her Bian embroidery wisdom to her students.

To date, Wang Suhua has trained more than 2,000 embroiderers for free and helped more than 20,000 locals find work related to Bian embroidery.

Cheng Fang from Kaifeng Bian embroidery research institute says that the success of the embroidery piece of the painting Qingming Shanghe Tu initiated the enrichment of Bian embroidery content.

The craft embraced a renewed vigor in the 1990s when a series of works featuring profiles of politicians, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, brought the craft more public exposure.

In 2008, the craft was named a national intangible cultural heritage by the State Council.

"At present, the trend of combining traditional Chinese culture with the market economy is becoming increasingly apparent, and there is a huge demand for it (Bian embroidery) in the market," Cheng says.

"The development of traditional culture is bound to usher in a new turning point," she adds.

Wang Suhua's contribution has earned her a great many honors and prizes, including a lifetime achievement award from the China National Arts and Crafts Society in 2005 and the title of national inheritor of Bian embroidery in 2009 by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

"The embroidery techniques left by our ancestors have served as the foundation for my exploration, inheritance, development and innovation," Wang Suhua says.

"As long as I can move the needles, I am committed to passing on these techniques and promoting the development of the art of embroidery."