Face of Chaos

(This started as a reply to CJ’s comment to the previous post…then took on a life of its own)

There are two stories about how the “Forbidden Stitch” (or Forbidden Stitches…there are several that claim the title) got the name.

First off (and not one of the stories) — The “Forbidden Stitch” is not a translation from Chinese. I don’t know what the terms are in Mandarin, but they don’t translate to “Forbidden Stitch.”

The two possibilities are:
1. It’s a fine, tedious stitch done as a filling stitch (meaning the embroiderer gets to do…oh, say a couple hundred to completely cover a square inch of ground fabric) so, when European embroidery teachers first recognized and dissected its construction, they labeled it “Forbidden” ’cause no one wanted the good women of Europe going blind because they were trying to imitate those inscrutable Chinese.

And while I don’t doubt that one could find pretty much that exact sentiment in any number of books, I don’t really think that that’s how the stitch(es) got their name….though, it *is* true that properly done, the Forbidden Stitches are tiny stitches and that in the absence of good lighting and/or magnification (a virtual given prior to the twentieth century) only young embroiderers could do them perfectly. Embroidery isn’t going to blind anyone (not unless you get real careless with the needle) but between chronic eyestrain and ordinary presbyopia, there can come a point where it’s not just that you can’t see the needle’s eye…you can’t see the thread or the stitch you just made.

Option 2: What we tend to think of as “traditonal” Chinese embroidery — the dragons and “rank badges” of both antique and tourist trade provenance, is the Imperial embroidery of the Ming and (especially) the Manchu dynasties (in part, because there’s not a whole lot of pre-17th century silk left to admire or study). As I understand it, the Manchus took Ming motifs and structures and created a strict hierarchic structure, both social and embroidered — sort of like European sumptuary laws

Certain motifs can be worn only by persons of certain status (five-toed dragons, for example, could only be worn by the Emperor. Members of his family were only entitled to lesser-toed dragon. Those not of the Imperial family couldn’t wear dragons at all but were entitled to other animals — hence the “rank badges” that dominate the antique and reproduction market.

Anyway, it won’t come as a great surprise to read that the Imperial Palace (aka the Forbidden City) contained workrooms where garments for the Imperial court were made or that Imperial workrooms had access to the best raw materials, the best artisans, and turned out garments of spectacular quality…or that what was done in the Forbidden City was supposed to stay in the Forbidden City.

So, the Forbidden Stitch describes the particular stitches that distinguish Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) garments from lesser clothing and possibly (though not certainly) that some of the embroidery techniques employed in the emperor’s workroom were considered “state secrets” and it was illegal to teach them (or use them) elsewhere.

My guess is that Option 2 is an original and somewhat scholarly source and Option 1 became a popular (though erroneous) explanation.

Elsewhere on the web, there are some good pictures and stitch diagrams at http://www.marlamallett.com/forbidden_stitch.htm

For more about “dragon robes,” I recommend “The Art of Oriental Embroidery” by Young Y Chung which devotes a whole chapter to them and has some good photographs.

For Chinese clothing in general I reccomend “5000 Years of Chinese Costumes” by Zhou Xun — if you can find it (I certainly wouldn’t recommend *buying* it at Amazon. On the other hand, there’s nothing else quite like it…

(Ah, the joys (and dangers) of browsing the bookshop at EGA seminars…)

In April, after some shuffling of schedules, Diane and I and one of Diane’s longtime friends who’d come to Florida to escape Indian Winter up north, headed up to Gainesville to view a pair of art exhibits, both hung around a “Kimono” theme.

Our first stop was the Harn Museum on the University of Florida campus, which is less a museum for the UF students than a statement by Florida that “Yes we do care about art.” Anyway, we got there before the museum opened and wandered through the “Florida Native Plants” garden.

April in central Florida is like June north of the Mason-Dixon line. Our birds pair up and nest in February and by April, the nestlings are ready to become fledglings, which is what had happened to the hawk on the left a few hours before we got to the garden. He (or she…I’m not that good at bird identification) was perched on that blue lamppost and he didn’t budge as we approached…just stared at us as if he’d never seen the like before… And we probably were the first large animate objects he’d seen. I had the distinct feeling that was asking himself, THAT’S the source of the goodies Mom and Dad have been bringing me…and now I’m supposed to dismember it MYSELF? Mom and Dad were less bemused. One of them was circling overhead, the other was up on the museum facade and both of them were crying up a storm.

I’ve heard stories of parental hawks stooping on bystanders that get too close to their nests or fledglings and for a moment I wondered if we were going test the truth of those stories. But, no…the fledgling finally heeded his parents’ calls, spread his wings, and took off on what might have been his second solo flight. He cleared the mown grass by about five inches then remembered what his wings were for and made it up to the lowest limb of a big, old live-oak…which is where he still was when we moved on.

It was already clear that it was going to be a wonderful day.

I can’t speak for the “traditional” art in the Harn museum, but to get to the kimono exhibit, we first worked our way through a fascinatinng exhibit of African beadwork, though it’s a bit unsettling when you see exhibit cards labeled “mid 20th century” and realize that you’ve lived long enough to become curatable.

From the beadwork (still headed for the kimono) we went through their Chinese costume gallery (I can’t think of another art museum of comparable size that has a Chinese costume gallery — must have something to do with University of Florida donor characteristics). Non-flash photography was allowed in the gallery and, since I’m easily seduced by silk thread I took a few pictures. Most of the garments were summer robes from the late Manchu period. (That’s early 20th century…before my time and less unsettling in a museum context.) Although I’ve read about horse-hoof robes before (the one on the left) I haven’t seen many “in the flesh” and these were displayed in a way that made it easy to study the embroidery, which was impressive…but not singular. It’s easy to imagine crowded workrooms where hordes of under-paid embroiderers stitched their lives away. No surprise that one of the primary stitches was known as the “Forbidden Stitch” or that the Imperial embroiderers were said to go blind from their work

But I hadn’t seen summer robes before. The motifs (on the right) are much less formal and the silk ground is almost transparent. It’s also clear that the summer robes were embroiderered after they were sewn together (the motifs cover the seams) unlike the horse-hoof robes where the fabric was embroidered before construction.

My friends and I were, by then, running late. We’d used up the ninety minutes we’d allocated for the Harn exhibit…and we hadn’t even gotten to the kimono…

(…to be continued)

Sometimes, as much by accident or luck as by design, something damaged appears to heal…

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/iraq.php?src=eoa

It’s taken a month, but the carpenter ants have finished: The Closed Circle site where my friends CJ Cherryh and Jane Fancher and I intend to establish ourselves (and, more importantly, our work) on the Internet is up. We have graphics. We have links. We have ideas… We don’t have much in the way of content yet (The carpenter ants may have finished, but the movers haven’t arrived) but the three of us are working on it.

As much as the three of us love gadgets and technology, the truth is that when it comes to the Internet, we use the “Helen Keller” method (striding forward boldly until we hit a wall, then making a course correction…repeatedly), so don’t be surprised if the site slips in and out of functionality over the next few weeks, but our goal is to have some of our backlist titles available for download in a variety of digital and/or printable formats Real Soon Now.

It’s all quite exciting and I’m looking forward to incorporating this whole learning process into not only a new look for my own much-neglected website but also a place I’m planning to call “Thieves’ World Forever.”