Suzhou Embroidered Mother And Suzhou Society

The female embroiders in Suzhou could be divided into three types:the inner apartment female embroiders, the country female embroiders and the governmental full-time embroiders. They fused and affected mutually in technique. They took the embroidery as a center, and inherited the embroidery technique among their community. In the economical and cultural areas, they contacted with other communities, such as merchants, powerful officials, writers, the female embroiders of Suzhou had their vividly professional characters.In modern times, with the rise of Shanghai, Suzhou lost its economy and culture superiority in Jiangnan and even in China. Silk reeling, knitting and other traditional handicrafts in Suzhou backwarded gradually.But which established on the basis of the economy and culture of Suzhou as a special arts industry, Suzhou embroidery had bigger overseas markets and developed more quickly than before. During later Qing dynasty and earlier Republic China, there were many female embroidery elite in Suzhou, such as Hua ji , Chen huazhen, Wang shouming and Shen shou. Especially Shen shou who creating "simulated embroidery" and summing up embroidery techniques, introduced Suzhou embroidery to the world.From 1929 to 1949, with the destruction of the world capitalist economic crisis and the wars, Suzhou embroidery was at the brink of collapse. The embroiders of Suzhou gradually became the folk full-time embroiders and the country female embroiders. Between the technique inheritance and the family relationship, some female embroiders became to accept the vocational education gradually. The folk full-time embroiders and the country female embroiders had less knowledge than the inner apartment female embroiders.And their technique level was much lower. At the same time, their innovational ability was not so strong as before. Their social contact was limited to such a narrower area . They were much farther away from the elite, such as merchants, industrialists, writers and famous painters, Moreover, the enthusiasm of their embroidery was becoming frail, whose aim of embroidery was main...