Reeling is a plain fabric with raw silk as warp and all kinds of cooked silk as weft. When making, first draw the artwork on the warp, and then use more small shuttles to dig and weave according to the patterns and colors. This special weaving method makes some cracks and holes appear between the pattern and the plain color, color and color of the product, just like knife carving. Song people have the saying that "bearing the empty view is like carving an elephant", so it is also called "carving silk", and sometimes they write silk and silk. China's knitting technology originated from the Western Regions. It was first used for woolen goods and later used for silk goods. Mao appeared in the Han Dynasty, and a piece of horse hair from the Han Dynasty was unearthed at Loulan site in Xinjiang. The wool yarn used in the early days was thick and solid, but it became thinner in the Tang Dynasty. 1973 The geometric diamond-shaped silk reeling belt was found in Astana tomb in Turpan, indicating that silk reeling began in China in the middle of the 7th century at the latest. Silk reeling in the Tang Dynasty was rare and incomplete. As far as early silk reeling research is concerned, Liao silk reeling has its unique value. Compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, Liao is closer to the Tang Dynasty. Many Liao tombs have been unearthed, such as Yelv Jade Tomb, Daiqin Tara Tomb and Faku Yemaotai Tomb. Except for a 2-meter-long Chijinshan dragon unearthed from Ye Maotai's tomb, the rest are small pieces. Reeling in Liao dynasty has the following characteristics: first, colored silk thread and sheet gold thread are basically woven together; Second, it mostly appears in the form of weaving (Figure 1). According to textual research, there are many similarities between silk reeling in Liao Dynasty and that in Tang Dynasty. For example, warp yarns are twisted with "S" into "Z", and weft yarns are generally not twisted (note 1). Song Hong Hao's Story at the End of the Song Dynasty says: "Since the end of the Tang Dynasty, Uighurs have been immersed in the micro. In the heyday of this dynasty, there were people living in Qinchuan as familiar households. Jurchen broke Shaanxi and learned about his disciples' Yanshan Mountain, Gansu, Liang, Gua and Sha. The old ones all had clan accounts and were later detained in Xixia. ..... and woven into robes with five-color thread. It's called Chris. It's gorgeous. " Uighur weavers are good at reeling silk, and there is a Uighur camp in Shangjing, Liaoning. Silk reeling was probably introduced into the Khitan area by Uighur weavers and produced locally. 1. Phoenix Silk Boots, Liao, collected by Cleveland Museum of Art, USA. Image source/"Liaosi" From the Northern Song Dynasty to the early Southern Song Dynasty, the silk reeling technique spread from the north to Dingzhou, and then from Dingzhou to the mainland. The government set up a special organization to manage handicraft production, and the Siwen Research Institute under the supervision of Shaofu set up "Koszo" to produce silk reeling. Technically, on the basis of picking, hooking and grabbing shuttles in the Tang Dynasty, the tying method of "knot" was developed, that is, the effect of eliminating dizziness was achieved by weaving weft yarns with similar colors and different lightness. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the silk reeling technology reached a mature stage and reached a historical peak, and it was able to "make flowers and animals at will", so it began to be used to copy and weave celebrity paintings and calligraphy, and paintings and paintings complemented each other, almost confusing. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Shengzhan praised "The Secret Collection of Qing Dynasty": "Song people broke every trace of flowers and birds, regardless of landscape figures, and the story was successful and not subject to mechanism. The unique feature of silk reeling in Yuan Dynasty is that it is used to weave imperial capacity. The imperial capacity originally refers to the portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi, which is used for sacrifice, but the imperial capacity in the Yuan Dynasty also includes important members of the royal family. There were two forms of imperial capacity making in Yuan Dynasty: painting and weaving. Painting imperial capacity is a tradition since Tang and Song Dynasties, and weaving imperial capacity is unique in Yuan Dynasty. A large number of imperial vessels were lost in the Yuan Dynasty, and the 24 imperial vessels preserved to this day are all paintings. So, what kind of technology is used to weave the imperial capacity? According to Yuan Shi, weaving imperial capacity is "weaving brocade for it". I suspect that the brocade technology at that time could not achieve this effect. On this point, Mr. Shang Gang has done textual research. This paper analyzes the labor consumption of weaving imperial power, the native place of craftsmen and supervisors, silk weaving workshops and so on. He presumed that the process of weaving imperial capacity should be reeling, not brocade. (Note 2) The Metropolitan Museum of Art has the Yuan Dynasty silk Datura Vader Vajrayana. The theme of the work is the image of Tibetan Buddhism, and Yuan Mingzong, Wenzong (Figure 2) and his queen are woven at the lower end as patrons. The portrait is only about 20 centimeters high, but it looks very realistic, especially the portrait painted by timur, a scholar in Yuan Dynasty. Compared with the portrait of Yu Rong in the book "Yuan Empress" in the National Palace Museum in Taipei (Figure 3), their appearance is consistent with today's photography. 2. The image of Yuan Wenzong in Datuk Vader Vajrayana collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States. 3. The Yuan Wenzong portrait of the Queen of Yuan collected in the National Palace Museum in Taipei was gradually specialized in silk reeling during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and its technological level was further improved, especially in Suzhou. Thrift was still practiced in the early Ming Dynasty, and silk reeling was once banned by the imperial court, but it became popular again after Shenbao Virtue. The subtlety of Ming silk reeling technology lies in its short shuttle weft returning technology, which uses extremely fine raw silk as warp, untwisted or weakly twisted coarse colored yarn as weft, and uses several small colored weft shuttles to change colors according to patterns and shuttle between warp yarns. In the Ming Dynasty, silk painting and calligraphy followed Yi Song closely, and achieved high achievements with exquisite craftsmanship. By the Qing Dynasty, the varieties of silk were increasingly rich, and gold was also developed. Three-color gold silk reeling was popular in the middle of Qing Dynasty, that is, red round gold and light round gold and silver thread were used to match the color in deep or shallow land, while three-blue silk reeling and ink silk reeling were more common in the later period. Uses: Practical and decorative articles for daily use The original use of silk should be as articles for daily use, such as clothes, cushions, table carpets, etc. Due to the limitation of weaving technology, when reeling first appeared, it was mostly used to make narrow articles. For example, the geometric ribbon unearthed from the tomb of Astana in the Tang Dynasty is the belt of dancing figurines, with a bandwidth of 1 cm and a length of 9.5 cm. As a clothing material, silk is often woven into shoes, hats and other small things. Feng Huangwen's silk-covered boots, golden water, lotus-covered cotton caps and Capricorn patterns were unearthed in Liao tombs. By the Yuan Dynasty, the use of silk in clothing began to increase. According to the literature, silk is produced as a whole and cut into clothes. The robes of the Yuan Dynasty were decorated with cloud shoulders, and reeling was also one of the materials. In Rossi & Rossi Ltd' s collection, there are two pieces of Yunjian silk reeling in Yuan Dynasty. In addition, silk reeling fans were very popular in the Yuan Dynasty. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the use of practical silk was further expanded, and silk was used to make bedding, cushions, purses, glasses bags and so on. Mounting materials can also be used as decorative and mounting materials related to art, such as packaging heads and book covers. Song people's careful books "Dong Qiye's History" and "Shaoxing Imperial Book Style" contain: "Publish the original calligraphy, made of ink from Han, Three Kingdoms, Two Kings, Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties, made of silk, mounted on the balcony, green and dripping, and ginger teeth are white and silky. Another Yuan Dynasty Tao wrote in the Record of Dropping Out of Farming in the Long Scroll of Painting and Calligraphy: "Silk is a pavilion, silk is a dragon water, silk is a hundred flowers to save the dragon, and silk is a dragon and phoenix." Even as a mounting material, if the years are good, it is often taken seriously as a work of art. In the embroidery collection of the Palace Museum, there is a Ming Dynasty's Tianlujin (formerly known as Little Point Tianlutu, Note 3). The volume is 29 cm vertically and 26 cm horizontally, which was originally the coronation at the beginning of the old album. Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty recognized the silk reeling in the Song Dynasty, so he disassembled it, re-mounted it into a hand roll, and re-inked it before and after. From the postscript, we can know Gan Long's understanding of the age and variety of this cultural relic. The calligraphy title "including Huayun Valley" and the preface and postscript "Yongtian Golden Deer" said: "Six coins are only brocade, and in ancient times it was Zhou Lichen. Fu once heard of the Yu family, and Wu people can be seen in the beam. The first thing is manufacturing, and it is shameful. Choose Buddha with incense and light, and the spirit will be revealed. After the sentence "choose Buddha with incense", he added: "The grand collection of famous paintings in the inner government is the original works of famous artists before the Yuan Dynasty. The Song Dynasty carved a crown with silk at the beginning of the book. Later, Dong Qichang wrote "Postscript Cloud", and Yu Yu was not good at the nature of Martha Tang Li, so he was not selected in the field of Buddhism, and so on. This is the first time in the old picture scroll that Tianlu brocade is satisfied, and it is full of ancient fragrance and brand-new. To answer the question, I also take the incense lamp as an example. "Later, in the postscript" Re-discussion on Tianlujin ",he said:" Song carved silk many times, and both of them are picturesque. It can be seen from the foil decoration of "Introduction to Painting with Hand Roll" that the silk of Song Dynasty was precious in Qing Dynasty, and its status was equal to painting. Because of its vivid silk thread, artworks are often used to copy and weave paintings and calligraphy, and are usually regarded as derivatives of paintings and calligraphy, which belong to the category of artworks. In the copy of Tianshui Iceberg Record by Yan Song in Ming Dynasty and the Collection of Paintings and Calligraphy by Neifu in Qing Dynasty, silk thread was written together with paintings and calligraphy. Some people even think that its exquisiteness has surpassed painting. In the mid-Yuan Dynasty, Hu Zhu once praised: "The imperial dynasty must be a skillful craftsman, good at weaving and restraining capacity, and its craftsmanship is beyond the reach of painting, which is unheard of." According to its function, silk as a work of art can also be divided into two categories: one is as a religious art offering, and the other is as an appreciation of painting and calligraphy. Religious works of art are mostly Buddha statues, scriptures and so on. Earlier, the Liaoning Provincial Museum collected the Diamond Sutra in five generations of silk, which was dark green, with yellow silk and white columns, and the font was neat and clear. Tangka and some small pieces have also been unearthed at the site of the Black Water City in Xixia, the most famous of which are the green statue of Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Tangka in the dark sky of Cleveland Art Museum in the United States. Many thangkas also survived during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. * * * The Southern Song Dynasty silk tapestry "Palmaton and Juba on the Moon" (Figure 4) is collected in Potala Palace. Tapestry and painting are integrated into one, and the image is vivid. Knitting techniques such as picking, knotting and hooking are adopted, and the whole picture is treated with single-line wrapping, flat painting and intermittent color matching. 4. Pearl statue on Palmaton Moon collected by Potala Palace in Southern Song Dynasty. Image source/China Complete Works of Weaving and Embroidering Clothing (1) The value of reeling in celebrity calligraphy and painting is the highest among embroidery products, even higher than Gu embroidery. At that time, Kerou Zhu and Shen Zifan, the famous silk reeling masters, were both famous for drawing silk reeling. There are many famous paintings and calligraphy works in Liaoning Provincial Museum, Taipei Palace Museum and Shanghai Museum, such as Kerou Zhu's Peony Lotus Pond Duck Picture and Shen Zifan's Flower and Bird Painting (Figure 5). There are also many fine products in Yuansi. The National Palace Museum in Taipei has a remnant silk "Flower Screen of Bronze Mirror" (Figure 6), and there is a colorful hydrangea tree in the corner of the bronze mirror, which is beautiful and lovely and quite interesting in the Song Dynasty. 5- 1. The axis of Flowers and Birds by Shen Zifan, reeling in Southern Song Dynasty, collected by National Palace Museum in Taipei. Image source/Complete Works of China Weaving and Embroidering Clothing (1) 5-2. Shen Zifan's "Flowers and Birds Picture Axis" Part VI. Yuan, the remnant of the bronze mirror screen, is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Image source/Complete Works of China Weaving and Embroidering Clothing (1) The identification and collection of silk reeling is very important in the history of art, but it seems that it is not easy for collectors to identify and often make mistakes. The "Tianlujin" mentioned above is an example. At the end of 2065438+2008, Shanghai Library held the "Brilliant Flowers-China Ancient Book Binding Art Collection Fine Literature Exhibition". Among the exhibits is an inscription on Liquan in Jiucheng Palace (Figure 7), which was a rubbings of the Song Dynasty. It was reloaded by Gong and written by Weng Fanggang in the Republic of China. At the end of the book, Gong reloaded the inscription. Weng Fanggang and Gong Dou thought that the book coat in Song Dynasty was made of silk, but it was actually satin, which was far from the organizational structure of silk. 7. The Ming of the Ritual Spring in Jiucheng Palace, edited by Song Tuoben and reloaded by Gong during the Republic of China, can be judged from its unique organizational structure and appearance characteristics. Silk reeling is a plain weave fabric, in which warp yarns run through the fabric, and weft yarns do not run through the whole fabric, but are interwoven with warp yarns only where patterns are needed, that is, "warping and weft breakage" in the literature. The special weaving method makes the patterns and patterns of silk reeling have broken marks and small holes around them, forming a "waterway" that covers the light and is very clear. There are two main types of reeling that contemporary collectors pay attention to: first, works of art with celebrity paintings and calligraphy as powder; Second, it's good to have early decorations. However, knowledgeable collectors generally avoid works with birthdays, marriages and children as their themes. Words? Tu Ber Ber, Associate Professor, School of Fashion Art and Design, Donghua University. His research direction is annotation 1. Zhao Feng, Silk of Liao Dynasty, Hong Kong: Muwentang Art Publishing House Co., Ltd., 2004, p. 94. 2. Shang Gang, Story: The Imperial Power of the Yuan Dynasty, Book City, 20 17, p.1issue, p. 44-45. 3. See Bao Mingxin and Li Xiaojun, Supplement to Tianlujin or Qilin, Journal of the Palace Museum 20 12, No.5, p. 146- 150. This article was published in Collection of Ancient Fine Arts (2065438+2009). Original title: Weaving to Image, Like Life: The History and Application of Silk Reeling.