Cantonese Embroidery

There are four main categories of Chinese embroidery: Suzhou embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Shu embroidery and Guangdong embroidery. Yue embroidery is also known as "Guang embroidery", which is an embroidery product produced in Guangdong. It comes from the same source as the brocade made by the Li nationality. The style was formed in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. It is one of the four famous embroidery in China. It is an embroidery product produced in Guangdong, with Chaozhou and Guangzhou as the center.

The characteristics of Yue embroidery are: First, it uses a variety of threads. In addition to silk threads and woolen threads, peacock hair twists are also used as threads, or horsetails are wrapped around wool as threads. The second is to use bright colors, strong contrast, and a gorgeous effect. The third is to use gold thread as the contour line of the embroidery pattern. Fourth, the decorative patterns are rich and plump, lively and cheerful. Commonly used themes with local characteristics, such as aviary and phoenix, seafood fish and shrimp, and chayote fruits. Fifth, most embroidery workers are male workers. There are rich varieties of embroidery, including quilts, pillowcases, bed lintels, shawls, headscarves, curtains, embroidered clothes, shoes and hats, costumes, etc., as well as mirror screens and hanging curtains.
Cantonese embroidery began in the Tang Dynasty. There is a true story about Guang Embroidery. A 14-year-old Cantonese girl named Lu Meiniang in the Tang Dynasty embroidered a volume of Buddhist scriptures on a square piece of silk silk. The font was smaller than that of corn, and the dots and paintings were distinct. This story shows that the history of Guang embroidery is so long and long, and how remarkable the skills are. Guang embroidery developed to the Ming Dynasty and has become one of the important folk handicrafts.

In the ninth year of Ming Zhengde (1514), a Portuguese businessman bought dragon robe embroidery in Guangzhou, and returned to China to give it to the king and received a great reward. Since then, Guangzhou embroidery has become famous overseas, and many products are exported to the country every year. In the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing (1556), the Portuguese, Croze, saw some wide-embroidered handicrafts such as beaded embroidered shoes and exclaimed "excellent handicrafts". At that time, Guangzhou embroidery artists had reached a very high level, able to skillfully and embroider with woolen thread, using peacock hair and horsetail as thread and leash, and embroidering with gold thread and silver thread.

The end of Ming Dynasty to the middle of Qing Dynasty was the prosperous period of Guang embroidery industry. British businessmen began to process samples. Due to the rich colors of the sample design, it highlights the artistic characteristics of Western paintings, and uses the principles of perspective and light refraction, which has a profound impact on Guang embroidery. Guang embroidery began to gradually transform from small-scale production in small private workshops to commodity production. The large-scale production of wide embroidery products for interior decoration and daily-use clothing made its export into the heyday. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, due to the prosperity of Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera, a new type of Cantonese opera costume was added to Cantonese embroidery. At that time, the costumes produced by the Guangzhou Zhuangyuanfang were well-known in China, and even the court troupes came to customize them. During the Qianlong period, the Guang embroidery industry had become a city, with as many as 50 embroidery workshops and embroidery shops, and more than 3,000 employees.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the Guang embroidery industry still maintained a momentum of development. In the embroidery exhibition competition of the four provinces and cities held in Guangzhou in 1929, Guangzhou Embroidery exhibited works such as "Peacock Peony", "Pan Lion" and "Snow Landscape", and was named one of the four famous embroidery in China.