CHINESE HANDCRAFT

Evening Post, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 3

CHINESE HANDCRAFT

EARLIEST ART WORK

ROMANTIC HISTORY

A. .delightful- article by Nellie A Evans on the subject of Chinese embroideries and handcrafts appears in the "Sydney Morning Herald" as follows:— : China, perhaps more than any other nation, has fostered and encouraged art since the very dawn of civilisation. The earliest specimens of Chinese art, extant, are two bone carvings/ which were found on the site of the ruined city of Yin. ' Scientists assert that they date from 10,000 years before the Christian era, and a collection of Chinese bronze of the ■ third century, now in the Paris Museum exceeds in beauty any. similar collection in the world. Tradition has it that the place whence the bronze originated was HoChan, a mountain in Northern China, and that they were part of an offering made to the mountain by Emperor Shi-Huang-ti. We know for certain that the group of sculptured figures before the tomb of General Ho-Kiiiping, in the Valley of the Wei, dates from 119 B.C. It is in art expressed through silks and embroideries that the Chinese stand pre-eminent, however, and it is a peculiar and striking fact that, in China, from the very beginning, the decorations for pottery and mats and the designs for pictures were always taken' from samples of the embroiderer's art, not, as in the West, the designs for embroideries borrowed from the design of the painter. The history of silks and embroideries of the East is full of romance. The discovery of silk and the rearing of silkworms first originated with HsiLing, wife of the Emperor, Huang-Ti, three millenniums before the Christian era. Indeed, it is from the silk that China derived its- name. "Chin," meaning gold, being the Chinese name for silk, for it is held to be as precious as gold. The ancient Greeks knew it as the silk country, and, in the third century, the monk, Dionysius Peerages, wrote of China's "precious flowered garments, delicate as a spider's web." SACRED MULBERRY LEAVES. Even to the present day the Empress Hsi-Ling is honoured at the annual celebrations, held to commemorate the dis-covery-of silk, and, for many generations, it was customary for the reigning Emperor, as the first agriculturist of the land, to turn the first furrow of the season, and .for the Empress to pick the first mulberry leaves and offer them on the altar. The care of the silkworms was held to be one of the duties of Chinese'women, and wild ones, as well as mulberryfeeding ones, were kept in great numbers. China was undoubtedly the first nation to ornament its materials with a pattern, and the' pattern has altered surprisingly little throughout the centuries. To know the significance of the patterns gives, of course, an. additional interest to the beautiful work. The dragon is much used, but in China the dragon is not looked upon as a symbol of evil as in the Western world. It is a celestial dragon,, and that is why it is usually surrounded by flowers. Butterflies are emblems of happiness, and the mandarin ducks (always found in pairs) signify wedded- happiness. Tortoises, lotus flowers, and the phoenix are also favourite designs, together, and the Dog of Fo, usually featured playing with a ball of brocade. Then there are the twelve ornaments, which, at one time, might only be embroidered on the garment of an Emperor, the rank of the other Court officials being denoted by the. number of embroidered ornaments. Principal among the ornaments,,, are Shih-Erh-Chuang (the eighth Buddhist felicitous emblem), Mem (the sacred Buddhist mountain) rising from the sea, and the Jui sceptres. A wonderful symbolism runs through the patterns of these embroideries. There is a striking example in the Albert and Victorian Museum. A Chinese official description is attached to a nineteenth-century robe, and runs, "The Creator, Tae Keig, divided into Tan and Yin (male and female), the principals enveloped in the rays." The eight Trigams (Pau Kua) eneloso bats carrying jewels in their beaks. The Blue Dragon of the East is in one corner, and Mount Meru is surrounded by the flaming jewels of the Buddhist law. The eight Trigams are the age-old figures for fire, air, sky, wind, sun, moon, water, and earth. There are also the "hundred common objects" for the housewife and student. A JEALOUS SECRET. The manufacture of silk and the rearing of silkworms were for a long time exclusive to China, the secret being jealously guarded, but, about the beginning of the Christian era, some eggs of the silkworm, were carried to Khotan by a Chinese Princess in her hair. We do not know her reason for betraying the secret of her native land, but probably she had a lover whom she desired to enrich. In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, two Nestorian monks brought some eggs of silkworms to Byzantium *in bamboo canes. The untiring patience of the people of the Orient is strikingly exemplified in their embroideries, some of which are so fine that the work can only be properly appreciated when seen under a microscope. In the eighth century a princess of the .Tuang Dynasty embroidered on a small square of silk 3000' mandarin ducks and surrounded them with flowers. The Chinese loom is upright, and only in the matter of size has it changed through many • generations. The weaver sits below, and his assistant, perched on top, pulls the treadle, and helps to change the threads. When embroideries are worked by two, with the material stretched over a frame, one pushes the needle to the other. Thus the work is exactly the same on both sides. Sometimes a flower made up of about twenty small pieces is touched with a brush, and the effect is marvellous. When purchasing a piece of Chinese embroidery, the one with vision sees in it not only a desirable piece of work, Tjut something fragrant with mystery and romance.