Du-jinsheng Brocade:
Weaving the Modern Chinese History
by: Sitong Yin

”Is there a better way to capture the local landscape than using the local material?“ ——Du-jinsheng

The Peacock standing in front of the rabbit hole

At the first day of class, Isaac Facio, our professor, pulled out a large range of different textiles from different regions and times, from the collection of TRC for a slow looking practice. There is this one gorgeous jacquard woven piece that caught my attention immediately, with an image of a peacock gracefully standing under a blossomed plum tree. I can immediately tell that this is a textile from China. I am currently highly focused on jacquard weaving in my own practice, and I have trained as a traditional Chinese ink painter for more than 6 years in my childhood. Therefore I am deeply associated with this figurative jacquard woven piece that mirrors traditional Chinese paintings at first glance.Yet this piece of textile, as my research started from it, and as the peacock lured me down a rabbit hole, remains the most mysterious but attractive piece within the Chinese jacquard woven collection in TRC for me.

Strangely, as I became more curious about it, I opened the drawer of the jacquard in TRC and started investigating other Chinese jacquard woven textiles, I seemed to know less about this piece… 

There are in total 15 pieces of this type of Chinese jacquard woven textile in TRC, including our star, the peacock. They are most likely purchased in the 1980's, from Hangzhou, China, the city I love and had lived in for the last 5 years before I moved to Chicago for graduate school. There are texts on the weavings that indicate that they were produced in factories in Hangzhou. I felt even more emotional when I found out that some of the weavings captured the landscape of West Lake in Hangzhou, where I spent some much memorable, romantic and amazing time of mine, so much story I have with the lake. There is no surprise that I went down that deep deep rabbit hole with no turning back in investigating more about these pieces… there is a lot to learn from them. 

The content of these brocades is all figurative, ranging widely from Chinese historical stories to figures of the modern Greatmans, from photographic landscape to animals and plants. These special pieces are largely different from ancient Chinese graphic and decorative brocade, which indicate its modernity. In fact, these weavings are not seen as fabric but called “Brocade painting (织锦画)” in nowadays antique collection market in China, and perhaps were considered more of painting than consumable  fabric when they were produced too. 

They have an official name, Du-jinsheng Silk Brocade.

* Greatmans: Refers to politically important figures in Chinese history, for example, Chairman Mao, Deng Xiaopin, Zhou Enlai, Marx, Stalin etc.

* Brocade: Brocade is a kind of weaving that the wefts go through all warps, from one end to the other. It also refers to woven fabrics that have an embossed appearance. 

Why Du-Jinsheng, Who is Du-jinsheng?

At the beginning of 20 century, as the rule of the Qing dynasty ended, China started to learn from the conflict and encounter with the western and was slowly moving toward modernization, learning from philosophy to science, from politics to arts, from the west, especially in the field of industrialization as a way to reclaim rights and dignity of the country and the people. 

Du-jinsheng was born in 1897 and raised in Hangzhou, China. In 1919, Du-jinsheng graduated from Zhejiang First Industry School (浙江省立甲等工业学校) majored in weaving. He was the first generation of students who learned modern textile production from a modern school in China. Xu-Jianmo (许缄甫), who started the school after visiting and learning in Japan in the early 20 century, introduced modern Jacquard weaving technology to Hangzhou (in Zhejiang province) which had a long history of producing fine silk and silk weaving, hoping that education would help promote and develop the domestic textile industry. (1) 

Translation: 

Entrepreneurial experience:

The factory was founded in the eleventh year of the Republic of China. At that time, I was the professor of Industrial School and the Mechanical Weaving Department of the Female Vocational School. My family have been living at Mao-Jia Port of the West Lake for generations. I was born loving landscape, lakes and mountains, never getting tired of them. So it is from my heart and my love for me to be occupied with and dig into research of weaving the beauty of lakes and mountains, in search of capturing the miracle of nature. Zhejiang is blessed with high quality and quantity of silk, more than other provinces. Is there a better way to capture the local landscape than using the local material? I first tried this in Hangzhou Industrial School, and hired experienced craftsmen to help. It has been 9 years by now, we have invented more than 200-300 kinds of landscape weaving. They are all made under the principles of scientific art, which makes them uncomparable with other textile products. Their high resolution and stable gloss of the silk makes them no different from works of photography. Since they were on the market, they are popular throughout the whole nation. They have built up a high reputation. Throughout the East world, the West world, and the South East too, people see them as the highest quality of gifts. Therefore we set up stores at Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Ports in Hankou, opening up the market, which boomed the business quickly. Our factory thinks of domestic production as of great importance, as a way to reclaim the rights of our people. Therefore we never stop to make the product better. In response to customers’ call for colors in the weavings, I went to Japan twice for observation and studies. To acquire what my heart calls for, I worked hard on research and experiment, and finally I reached the successes of colorful weaving. The colored weavings could capture the beauty of sunset time clouds, flying dragons and phoenix. The colors are so rich that they almost don’t seem like silk weavings. If the artworks of  ancient and contemporary famous artists, flowers, birds, bugs, fishes, landscape and figures could all be captured by silk weaving, they would be vivid, so that Xiang embroidery of Hunan and Su embroidery of Suzhou won’t be the only kinds of textile that have this vivid capacity. Therefore, I named these weavings Wucai (Colorful) Jinxiu (Brocade). What’s better is that it is affordable yet with high quality. It doesn’t cost you much to own a famous artwork. This year we have acquired a newest loom from France to make beautiful western suits, ties, and lapel sport shirts, whose quality are as high as imported products. It is my honor to learn from those who kindly support domestic products, we welcome suggestions to make us better!

Written by Du-jinsheng, September 19th year of the Republic of China. 

Translated by Sitong Yin.

Du-jinsheng created the first figurative jacquard woven brocade in China in 1921. The landscape in this piece is called Eighteen Ravines in Jiuxi. This is a famous landscape scene in Hangzhou. Du-jinsheng wrote in his memoirs, that he thought there was no better way to capture the natural beauty of Hangzhou with the natural gift of silk locally produced. There is a romance embedded in the translation, the elements in the image in reverse representing the landscape as an image.

After graduation, Du-jinsheng stayed on teaching at this school, while he founded the Du-jinsheng silk weaving company in 1922. This company became the first Jacquard machine weaving factory in modern China. At first, Du-jinsheng only had one loom and one employee outside of his family. Over the years, his business grew quickly due to his dedication and urge to reclaim the pride of being a descendant of culture with thousands of years of profound textile history. We can have a peak on his enthusiasm and love not only for jacquard weaving but also for the people of our country and our culture alongside the major events of his life as follows.

Timeline of Du-jinsheng’s life

1897 Born in Hangzhou, China.

1919 Graduated from Zhejiang First Industry School (浙江省立甲等工业学校) majored in weaving.

1921 Created the first figurative landscape jacquard weaving “Eighteen scenes of Jiuxi” 

1922 Founded the Du-jinsheng Silk Weaving Company

1926 "Night Tour of Concubines" won the Gold medal in Philadelphia World Expo

1926-1937 Golden years of the company, products sold both domestically and internationally 

1937 The second sino-Japanese War broke out, the family and the company of Du-jinsheng forced to move to Shanghai

1939 Japanese army burned down Du-jinsheng’s factory in Hangzhou

1941 The Pacific War breaks, Shanghai was partly occupied 

1943 Du-jinsheng passed in Shanghai. His children and his wife take over the business after the war

Maybe it was the motivation from the success of Du-jinsheng and the spirit of promoting domestic silk weaving production, there was a group of  companies raised after the war who made silk Jacquard weaving in Hangzhou. The figurative jacquard weaving blossomed in Hangzhou and became a unique kind of its own within the textile field. In honor of Du-Jinsheng’s creativity, innovationality, and his contribution to this unique kind of figurative weavings, they are officially named after Du-jinsheng in 2005 by the Zhejiang government. And Du-jinsheng Silk Brocade is now a star within the Zhejiang province's Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Du-jinsheng brocade in the TRC

As mentioned above, there are in total 15 pieces of Du-jinsheng Brocade in TRC. Most follow the format as shown below that is typical of the style:

The 15 Du-jinsheng Silk Brocades in TRC were made from 4 different factories. But the consistency of the format is surprising as if they were made from the same factories. 

These weavings were donated by Anne Willson and Joan Livingstone, faculties in FMS Department of School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There are two pairs of the weavings repeating. That means the two donors purchased the same weavings separately twice and both donated them to the TRC, which is a very interesting coincidence. Which also means that although we have 15 pieces in the TRC, we actually have 12 kinds amongst the total.

Most of these pieces in TRC are woven with double-weft structure, black and white wefts, some of them have pigment applied on the surface to add colors. But there are 3 pieces woven with more than a triple-weft structure, without painting, but the colors were created by using multiple weft structures for introducing color mixing thread combinations instead of applying pigment on the surface.

What is Multiple-weft structure?

Multiple-weft structure is a technique in Jacquard weaving placing multiple kinds of yarn (different colors or different materials) for wefts in a fixed order. Different yarns are applied to different areas of the surface by the selections of warps (through digital selection or punch card selection), mixed or isolated, creating rich effects of color or texture.

Now, let's follow these 15 amazing brocades and let them introduce you their life stories:

1. Political Textile

Du-jinsheng silk brocades in its way not only documented but also participated in the important political moments of modern history of the People Republic of China. The PRC is a country politically built on the philosophy of Marx and Engles, Marx and Engles was and still is considered as one of the greatest historical figures. The figures portraits produced by the silk jacquard weaving companies in Hangzhou include but are not limited to Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Chair Mao, Zhou-Enlai, General Zhu-De, Stalin etc. In 1949, Mao gave a woven portrait of Stalin produced by the Du-jinsheng Silk Weaving Factory as a national gift to the former Soviet Union when he was visiting there. Du-jinsheng Silk Brocades continued to play its part in the political history of the PRC. 

This piece is special in many ways:

First, this piece was made during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). It was a time of darkness, chaos and fanaticism, when the worship of Chairman Mao became an unimaginable national fever. This is also the peak of collectivism and extreme hostility toward capitalism and individualism. Therefore, since in this case, Du-jinsheng Silk Weaving Factory had become a name too much of capitalism and individualism, the company changed their name to China Dongfanghong (which means Red of the East) Silk Weaving Factory. And the company changed into a national-owned business as all the companies at that time were. After the Cultural Revolution, the company reclaimed their original name. So the name of China Dongfanghong Silk Weaving Factory (中国东方红丝织厂) at the bottom right side of the weaving indicated that this piece is produced during the Cultural Revolution. Another evidence is that the thread used for the overlock on this piece is slightly yellowing compared to the other pieces in TRC.

The image of this weaving came from what is said to be the most replicated and remade oil painting in the world, Chairman Mao Going To Anyuan. It captures the moment in 1921, when Mao was going to Anyuan to motivate the railway workers in Anyuan to join in the revolution, and organized a strike with them. This painting was made into multiple forms, like stamps, woodcut prints, posters and, of course, silk weavings, etc. in massive quantities. 

Also, this piece is one of the most complicatedly woven pieces among the Chinese Jacquards in TRC. This piece was woven with a 7-weft structure. Nonetheless, there are more than 7 colors of yarn, instead it’s 9 colors of yarn. At 17 centimeters from bottom to top, the deep red weft yarn is replaced by a brown one; At 21 centimeters from bottom to top, the yellow yarn is replaced by an orange one. 

The complication of this piece of weaving and the massive production of this image, tells us how highly, even feveredly, worshiped Mao was back at that time period.

Worth mentioning is Du-jinsheng Silk Brocades also participated in an important diplomatic moment as China started to build up international relationships during the 1970s. 

In 1971, during the Nagoya World Table Tennis Championships in Japan, Zhuang Zedong, a Chinese table tennis player, presented a piece of Du-jinsheng brocade to Cohen, an American player who got on the Chinese coach by mistake, thus kicking off the prelude of Sino-US “ping-pong diplomacy”. 

One other thing this episode indates is that not all the Du-jinsheng Silk Brocades produced during the Cultural Revolution are images of the politically important figures, there are still a great number of them captured landscape scenes in China, as Du-jinsheng always wanted to do his whole life. In fact, after the politically unstable time, the main themes of Du-jinsheng Silk Brocades had returned to landscape, architecture and traditional ink paintings etc.

1. Reopening of the market

As the Reform and Opening Up proceeded in the 1980s, there were even English translations appeared on the weaving, marking that the business of this special brocade was reopened to the international market. I presume that the reason why most of the colors on the pieces we have in TRC are painted on after being woven is to meet up with the massive need of a bigger market.

Perhaps this piece above is the most complicatedly woven one in the collection. Not only that at the weft side, it applied double-weft, triple-weft and 9-weft structure, but also at the warp side, there are two alternating colors of yarn, yellow and white. The green Chinese calligraphy in the middle means “Long live”. The figures within the calligraphy are the Eight Immortals that symbolize long lifes. The complexity of this piece would make this not only potentially more expensive but also a great luxury, in other words, a good-looking gift to the elders. That means the consumers have a higher ability to purchase more luxur textiles at that time.

After introducing all the weavings above, looking back at the peacock in the beginning, it’s evident that this piece is an extremely special one among them. 

1. The layout of this weaving is completely different. The layout mimicked one way of finalizing the traditional Chinese painting, painting in the middle framed with graphic textile. What is interesting here is that in this piece, the center image is also woven but not painted.

2. There is no text on the surface, so no indication of the producer or time.

3. The serge is not locked and about a quarter inch of the border is seemingly ironed and folded, which makes the use of this piece of textile unclear while other pieces are clearly treated like decorative “woven paintings”. 

4. As I am getting confused by the uniqueness of this piece, I tried to look for similar pieces on the internet. I almost find all images of the other pieces online, and even able to trace back the series some pieces belong to. However, there are no images of woven jacquard textile that looks like the peacock one as far as I can find.

However, here are some trace of the identity of this piece of mystical textile:

1. In class we used a microscope to look into the micro-structure of the textiles in TRC. The silk yarn on this Peacock piece looks really similar to the Mao one, which can potentially indicate that they came from the same factory.

2. Peacock and plum three is a theme in Chinese traditional painting. This could indicate that this is indeed a Chinese Jacquard piece.

Retelling of story never ends

I still remember what I learned about the modern and contemporary history of China in middle school and highschool. I was and still am very attracted to history and historical objects. At the end of my research, I still didn’t know much about the peacock. He took me for a tour and said goodbye without even mentioning his name. I fell into the rabbit hole of Chinese Jacquard weavings lured by a flamboyant peacock in the beginning. It turns out that it was a hole toward a portal of reliving the past. I am guilty of not knowing this kind of beautiful and historically important textile before this semester even when I had been living in Hangzhou for 5 years, and I was a student of Fiber Arts, and I practice digital jacquard weaving. Yet, I assume there are only a small number of people who remember and know about this gorgeous textile. Which makes this research project more meaningful and important for me to retell the story of the Du-jinsheng Silk Brocades, as a way of reclaiming and honoring, exactly 100 years after the Du-jinsheng Silk Weaving Factory was founded. 

These pieces of brocade came from and documented a time of encounters, conflicts and collision, not only between different cultures and political entities, but the past/the tradition and the present/the innovation. The weavings themselves are the best evidants. It is also interesting that as a Chinese fiber artist, and a 5-year Hangzhou citizen, I found these pieces that remind me of home in TRC in the US. Perhaps, new encounters never end, just as  the retelling of stories never ends. The weaving retells the history to me, and I here, retell their story to you. And maybe someday, you, who encounter this writing, would retell the story to yourself or your friends, and then I would be glad knowing that we are all woven together into the fabric of history.

Bibliography

“Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Du-Jinsheng Factory.” 热烈庆祝都锦生建厂一百周年. Accessed May 15, 2022. https://www.meipian5.cn/43rirm5n?share_from=self&share_to=group_singlemessage&user_id=678341&uuid=cecd8d4a6be94e81ac2f751c4490a9a4&share_depth=1&first_share_uid=678341&utm_medium=meipian_android&share_user_mpuuid=24f4dec2e2d1d48a6e122057881d6907&um_rtc=3e5b172a7e3476865ef3cc413ea749bd&from=singlemessage&first_share_to=singlemessage. 

"Du Jinsheng, a Master of Brocade Art in the Republic of China.” 丝绸大家. Accessed May 15, 2022. http://www.silknational.com/NewsView.aspx?ID=469. 

“Zhejiang University Prequel: Like the Wind, like the Breath.” 《浙江大学前传》试读： 犹如风声，犹如气息. Accessed May 15, 2022. https://book.douban.com/reading/15173620/.