|
|
|
Home
> Articles
|
|
How
to judge Suzhou Embroidery
Suzhou embroidery is a traditional art which has a high
requirement on hand skills. A piece of good Suzhou
Embroidery is a perfect combination of techniques and art,
the quality of effect in the artwork becomes a criteria in
judging Suzhou Embroidery. Normally we can tell from the
following criteria.
1. To judge the concept of the whole picture, in present
market, most of the concepts of pictures are similar, so
we can tell creative embroidery form ordinary ones.
2. The fineness of the needlework: it plays the most
important role in a picture. It should be very clear where
the thread should be thick and where it should be thin,
and they should hide the thread head and knot as well.
In order to make very fine embroidery, the thread must be
divided into thinner ones. Splitting the silk thread is
one of the traditional techniques of Suzhou embroidery,
that means to divide the thread into several strands. Like
half or a quarter of the original thickness, or even
thinner. If you want to embroider the tail of golden fish,
you should use very thin silk strands to express a sense
of lightness and transparency. The silk strand used for
the body of a fish should be thicker, giving people a
sense of weight. If you want to embroider a stone, or a
tree trunk, you must use thick thread, and a more random
pattern. And for the stitching of a cat, a color change
must be used for its fur, then the finished fur of the cat
will be as vivid as real cat fur.
The last key point is that the needlework should be dense.
The low quality embroidery is just printing the base
picture, then matching it with several threads with
similar color, and it will give people the impression of
embroidery if you stand far away from the picture. But if
you look at it carefully, you will find the pattern in the
back.( Since the picture is printed, and after a period of
time, the color of the ink will fade, it doesn't last
long.) This kind of embroidery is fake.
An embroidery with high art value also has the base
picture, but no matter how you check the picture, you will
never find it on the base. The base picture has been
covered by silk thread.( Good embroidery is usually made
by hand. The procedure of Mechanical Graphing and manual
graphing is different . Mechanical Graphing Computer jets
the picture, then fixes it in the supporting frame. And
because silk is quite flexible, it is easy to be deformed
when fixed into the frame. But manual embroidery is
different , it is fixed into a drawing frame first, then
they embroider it. So it’s impossible to deform. The
high value embroidery does not only need the embroidering
technique, but also they need the craftsmen knowledge of
painting. Because there is no base picture , only a
profile of the picture, for color they need the talent of
the craftsman. So a good piece of Suzhou embroidery is not
only imitation, but also includes the talent of the
craftsman.
The disordered stitching embroidery has a special
requirements on the thickness of thread, but also thread
angle is critical. To use the color of the thread to show
the bright and dark sides of the picture, they need the
crafts man to have a deep understanding of the application
of color.
3. The process of the artwork's color and art effect. That
means the brightness and color should match well, and
transition naturally. Such as an embroidered cat, the most
difficult part is the pair of eyes. The craftsman needs
more than twenty different colors to transition from one
color to another, making the eyes alive and vivid.
An embroidery with high value should have a beautiful
pattern, fine needlework, elegant colors, and deep
meaning.
|
|
About
