Gu Xiu, Yu Qiao, Farming and Reading Map Axis

[Gu Embroidery, Fishing and Woodcutting, Cultivating and Reading Picture Axis]

Gu Embroidery, Fishing and Woodcutting, Cultivating and Reading Picture Axis, Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, 112 centimeters long and 45 centimeters wide
This picture axis has the flavor of literati painting, expressing literati’s pursuit of an ideal life of elegance, leisure, and self enjoyment. Embroiderists use a combination of embroidery and painting techniques to trace the style of the original work, and both distant mountains and near slopes are painted with brush and ink. Characters, wooden bridges, thatched cottages, and trees are meticulously embroidered with needles instead of ink, and silk instead of ink. In addition to common needle techniques such as flat needles, needle sets, rolling needles, and positive snatching needles, straw sandals and fishing baskets are used with mesh needles, hut window frames and roofs are used with knitting needles, reeds and grass are used with oblique winding needles, and clothing patterns are not only outlined with rolling needles, but also rendered with pen and ink to give them a three-dimensional feel. The inscription and postscript on this poem pond, “Picking firewood, crossing the fields, meeting the father of the field, fishing, and listening to books by the stream,” is made of blue silk embroidery, and the three seals, “Qingbi Zhai”, “Luxiang Garden”, and “Jinggu”, are made of red silk embroidery.