Embroidery Series of Li Shan’s Painting and Calligraphy Newly-blooming Wisteria with Autumn Dew

This incomparably exquisite series by Lu Shuxian at the age between 85 and 87 is composed of four embroidery pieces, namely, China Roses Blooming in Four Seasons, Fragrant Lotus in the Breeze, Newly-blooming Wisteria with Autumn Dew and Chrysanthemum as the Only Blooming Flower, all based on the paintings with calligraphy by Li Shan (1686-1762 AD), one of the well-known painters dubbed as the “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou”. Thanks to the artist’s ingenious embroidery techniques to represent both free-hand and fine brushwork, these embroidery pieces are extremely elegant, poetic and revealing.
By use of the “double-stroke outlining and sketching” technique on a colorless foundation, the artist relied only her ingenious skills with thread and needle as her ink and brush to represent the series of classic paintings with calligraphy. Her proper recreation has not only successfully transferred the artistic conception of the original paintings onto the embroidery series, but only endowed them with new meanings, expressing her own best wishes for life.
With a flexible application of various techniques such as thickening stitches (shi zhen, 施针), random stitches (luan zhen, 乱针), seeding stitches (dian zhen, 点针), full-and-broken-line stitches (xushi zhen, 虚实针), along with the masterful selection of colored threads, the artist succeeded in re-presenting the agile cicada, beautiful but not vulgar flowers and leaves with vitality, and the free-flowing brushstrokes of calligraphy.
Award:
Gold Award at the “Hundred Flower Cup-Tian Gong Yi Yuan” Chinese Arts and Crafts Masterpiece Exposition of the International Exposition of Arts and Crafts, namely, the 12th Chinese Arts and Crafts Masterpiece Exhibition in 2011