Suzhou Embroidery
Suzhou embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Sichuan embroidery and Guangdong embroidery are the four most famous in China. Suzhou embroidery has a long history. It has been excavated in Auspicious Tower and Mount Tiger Tower made in Northern Song in Five dynasties.
Four Famous Chinese Embroidery Styles
Embroidery is a traditional Chinese craft which consists of pulling colored threads through a background material with embroidery needles to stitch colored patterns that have been previously designed on the ground.
Dragon and Tiger in folk art
The tiger is a popular theme in chinese folk art.One may encounter numerous images of tigers in almost all forms of folk art:paper-cuts, embroidery sculptre, new year prnts and others.
Wood Block New Year Pictures
In China's cities and the countryside, New Year pictures are closely linked with the Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year). Pasting up New Year pictures is a part of the festive celebrations.
Jingdezhen
Jingdezhen, formerly spelt Ching Teh Chen and known as the "Ceramics Metropolis" of China, is a synonym for Chinese porcelain.
Ceramics & Ceradon
Chinese Fans
No one knows exactly how fans in China were invented. The invention or rather the discovery of the fanning function could have been as accidental as follows: a primitive man irritated with lots of flies and mosquitoes, picks up a big leaf off a plant next to him to drive the pests away. To his delight, his effort resulted in cooling air movements.
Dragon & Phoenix
The dragon and the phoenix are the principal motifs for decorative designs on the buildings, clothing and articles of daily use in the imperial palace. The throne hall is supported by columns entwined by gilded dragons, the central ramps on marble steps were paved with huge slabs carved in relief with the dragon and phoenix, and the screen walls display dragons in brilliant colours .
Chinese Potted Landscape
Chinese potted landscapes have been famous for centuries and often described as "soundless poetry", "stereoscopic painting", or "living sculpture". In a pot no larger than a wash basin, the ingenious craftsmen create a miniature reproduction of a natural scene using stunted trees and plants, rocks and sometimes water.
Interior Painting in Snuff Bottles
Snuff bottles are not native to China but were reportedly introduced from the West by Fr.Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit father who worked in Beijing in the early 17th century. Yet the art of interior painting in snuff bottles was born and developed in China and unique to the country.
The Clay Fertility Figures of Henan
On any given day of the week, working days as well as holidays, you will find the people of Nanyang and Zhoukou in Henan Province creating rustic-looking yet colourful clay toys. Children, who like to play with them, call them "Nini Gou" (clay puppy) since most of these moulded figures are in the shape of a dog or other small animal. Some of them also have small over holes and can be used as whistles.
New Year Pictures
The expression explains itself. The Chinese people have the custom of sticking up pictures to celebrate the traditional New Year--now called the Spring Festival. This was recorded in historical works of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The custom is particularly popular in the vast countryside, where just before the festival day every household will be busy spring cleaning and pasting colourful pictures or paper cuttings on their doors, windows, walls, even wardrobes and stoves.
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