The Art of Silk: Legendary Suzhou Embroidery in a Modern Style

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-10 02:10

Master the art of the legendary Suzhou embroidery given only to a select few, since the secrets of silk embroidery are passed down from generation to generation. Painter Christopher leung, author of the enchanting Art of Silk project, recently unveiled luxurious works, “painted” with silk on silk, to the public. He explained that he sought to combine the tradition of creating drawing, which is more than two and a half thousand years old, with modern technology.

Christopher Leung has long been in love with Suzhou embroidery, in order to learn all the subtleties of the production of silk paintings, he visited the ancient Chinese town of Suzhou, where this art originated. He was struck by the painstaking work of the embroiderers, because it takes about several months to create one work. The cost price of silk canvases is very high, because both the time spent and the transportation of these works of art to the "mainland" are taken into account.

In order to "reduce the cost" of paintings and make them available to the mass buyer, Christopher Leung invented a way to reproduce silk embroidery using computer technology, but so that it looks exactly like the original. Four years of experiments were crowned with success: the master found a way to "transform" embroidered images into electronic ones. After that - to embroider stitch by stitch, but not by hand, but with the help of a machine.

The original of each painting is embroidered by craftswomen from Suzhou, accurately reproduced stitches allow you to make a copy almost indistinguishable. Picturesque landscapes, animals, flowers, portraits - the theme of silk works is varied. By the way, in the Christopher Leung collection there is even a copy of the legendary “The Kiss” by Klimt, so we can safely say that in the “Art of Silk” collection everyone will find something that suits his taste.