In the narrow alley of Tongqingli, Tianjin's ancient culture street, a hand-painted clothing studio called "Painted Clothing Workshop" is quietly hidden. cheongsam, costumes, dresses, costumes, ......In the studio, there are all kinds of colorful and beautiful hand-painted clothing, which are the works of Cheng Jinzhong, the inheritor of Cheng's clothing hand-painting, the master of arts and crafts in Tianjin, and his students. Cheng Jinzhong, 61 years old this year, with his adherence to the art of hand-painted clothing and the spirit of craftsmanship, poured more than 50 years of hard work into one piece of clothing. In August 2017, Cheng Jinzhong's clothing hand-painting skills were included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of Heping District, Tianjin.
A long history
Embroidery, crochet, printing and dyeing, batik, tie-dyeing, ......These will bring all kinds of beautiful patterns to the clothes, but did you know that there is another way to add pattern to the clothes, and that is hand-drawing? On February 8, the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, the reporter came to the "Painted Clothes Workshop" in Tongqingli, Ancient Culture Street, and met Mr. Cheng Jinzhong, who was teaching students.
Hand-painted clothing originated from the tattoos of primitive societies and has a long history in China, with hand-painted official uniforms appearing in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and continuing to the Ming and Qing dynasties. According to Cheng Jinzhong, the hometown of Cheng's clothing hand-painting, Zaoyang City, Hubei Province, is located in the remaining veins of Tongbai Mountain, and was known as "Dafu Station" and "Lutou Station" in ancient times. Although the local transportation is convenient in ancient times, but the economy is underdeveloped, many temple monks and ** clothing of the general people can not afford to embroider, most of them use the local rutile and plant pigment as the background color, the use of the juice squeezed by the plant Baiji as the binder, supplemented by fish bladder, bone glue pigment, the painted clothing can not be washed off with water after drying. Locally, this technique is called "painting coats". However, at that time, there were relatively few types of pigments, only black, red, green and yellow, and there were very few people who mastered this skill, because hand-painted clothing must not only have a certain painting skill, but also have a certain cultural literacy, both painting and writing, and also know how to match colors, after all, the color can not be cleaned after falling on the cloth.
According to the research of experts and scholars, hand-painted clothing has been popular since the Ming Dynasty. Cheng Jinzhong told reporters that the prevalence of hand-painted clothing strictly began in the Ming Dynasty, because in the Ming Dynasty, officials had to have "complements" before and after their official uniforms. "Complement" is the pattern of two squares before and after the official uniform, the civil official embroiders the birds, the military generals embroider the beasts, and the patterns are all hand-embroidered. At that time, not all the ** were rich, and some seven-rank officials had not been promoted for many years, and they were still honest and not corrupt, and they couldn't even afford to change their official uniforms. These petty officials can't enter the main hall every day when they go to court, and they are far away, and they can't even see the emperor's appearance clearly, so when their "patches" are old and broken, they are reluctant to spend money to repair them, so they use a brush to dip paint and paint it, anyway, the emperor can't see it, and he saves money.
Inherited from home
Although Cheng's clothing hand-painting originated in Hubei, this skill is now more popular in Tianjin, Beijing, Taiyuan and other places, especially Tianjin. Cheng Jinzhong told reporters that Cheng Chuanzhang, the first founder of Cheng's clothing hand-painting, was born in Zaoyang, Hubei Province in 1877. He has been good at pen and ink since childhood, by painting peonies, known as "peony Cheng" in the local area, once worked in Zaoyang County as a scribe, during his tenure for a temple painted a lot of exquisite murals and curtains, caused a sensation in the local area.
Cheng Jinzhong's grandfather Cheng Jiayang is the second-generation inheritor of Cheng's clothing hand-painting, and when he was young, he thought that the temple repaired paintings, ** letters and paintings for a living. Cheng Jiayang once used plant pigments into his paintings, and was good at painting southern landscapes, and his works were delicate and elegant.
In 1953, Mr. Cheng Yuhe, the father of Cheng Jinzhong and the third generation of Cheng's clothing hand-painting, moved to Tianjin from Zaoyang, Hubei Province, and worked in Tianjin Printing and Dyeing Factory, mainly engaged in printing and dyeing color matching work, and had the opportunity to approach and study industrial pigments and processes, which opened a new chapter in Cheng's clothing hand-painting techniques and skills. In the seventies and eighties of the 20th century, Tianjin's textile industry was leading in the country, and textile hand-painting was also popular in Tianjin. At that time, many famous calligraphers and painters in Tianjin had engaged in hand-painting work.
Cheng Jinzhong was born in Tianjin in 1963, and he began to learn painting from his father at the age of 8, and has never put down his paintbrush. From 1981 to 1995, Cheng Jinzhong served as the pattern designer of Tianjin Bed Sheet Factory, and was one of the first batch of arts and crafts masters engaged in hand-painting work in Tianjin. Over the years, Cheng Jinzhong has relied on his profound painting skills, rigorous and serious artistic concepts and meticulous craftsman spirit, and has designed novel and unique hand-painted patterns of textiles and clothing, with exquisite techniques, and has become a family of his own.
Ingenuity
The reporter noticed that in Cheng Jinzhong's studio, the walls were covered with a dazzling array of hand-painted clothing works, of which traditional clothing accounted for a considerable proportion. "Tianjin's hand-painted costumes appeared on bed sheets, tablecloths, lampshades, handkerchiefs, cushions, pillows, and slippers in the early days, and in recent years, they have been widely used in cheongsams and fancy costumes to meet people's personalized dress needs. Cheng Jinzhong told reporters that clothing hand-painted has a wide range of applications, which can meet the decorative needs of national costumes, cheongsam, Chinese costumes, dresses, etc., and can also be used in the daily home life of ordinary citizens.
Cheng Jinzhong said that the range of clothing hand-painting is very wide, whether it is a cheongsam, a costume, or a performance costume, all kinds of clothing can be hand-painted, so far, almost all clothing fabrics that can be worn on the body, except for leather and metal are not suitable, can basically be hand-painted.
The clothing is hand-painted, and the choice of pigment is extremely important. Depending on the season and the fabric, the pigments used will be different. In addition to the vividness, it is also important to consider the tinting strength and firmness. Over the years, Cheng Jinzhong has insisted on using his own research and development, from the seaweed extraction of sodium alginate made of new pigments, instead of modern acrylic dyes, suitable for silk, wool, cotton, linen and other types of fabrics, not only bright color, but also good air permeability, feel and softness are almost the same as modern printing and dyeing technology, and harmless to the human body.
Once, I hand-painted a performance costume with a moire pattern on the hem, and I painted it for three days. Cheng Jinzhong said that hand-painting of clothing is a very meticulous work, which tests a person's patience very much. Ticking, filling, adding, brightening, ......After a period of color fixing and drying, a complete hand-painted garment is complete. Even if the pattern is not very complex, it takes at least four or five hours to draw a ready-to-wear garment by hand, and several days on a slower scale.
Hand-painted clothing has changed the traditional mode of printing and dyeing patterns of clothing fabrics, and it is directly hand-painted on ready-to-wear, which has high technical requirements, difficulty and risk. Cheng Jinzhong said that hand-painted clothing is not like painting on paper, if the painting is broken or you are not satisfied, you can redraw it on another paper. Painting on the clothing means "no turning back", no mistakes are allowed, a little mistake is not ruined by a painting, but the whole garment, if the hand-painted mistake, it is necessary to compensate according to the ready-to-wear **. Once, a garment factory ordered a batch of hand-painted clothes, because there were some problems in the color, and in the end he compensated the other party more than 30,000 yuan.
Passing on the skills
As the inheritor of Cheng's clothing hand-painting, Cheng Jinzhong has always had a deep love and sense of responsibility for clothing hand-painting for so many years. Cheng Jinzhong emphasized that he is not a businessman, but an "artist". Over the years, he has immersed himself in the world of hand-painted clothing, slowly polishing his skills, refining his heart, and repaying time and years with beauty.
Today, Cheng Jinzhong's hand-painted clothing skills have been included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of Heping Zone. As the inheritor of the world, he has inherited the culmination of the ancestral traditional clothing painting skills, and applied his profound artistic skills to the inheritance and development of hand-painted clothing, while also paying attention to the trend of fashion, bringing new vitality to this intangible cultural heritage skill from the perspective of skill and creativity.
As a master of arts and crafts in Tianjin, a member of the China Folk Artists Association, a member of the China Arts and Crafts Association, and a director of the Tianjin Arts and Crafts Industry Association, he has been engaged in clothing hand-painting for more than 30 years. Under the word of mouth of customers, Cheng Jinzhong has accumulated a large number of loyal "fans", and many celebrities in the entertainment industry have come to visit, and at most, he can receive more than 20 orders a day.
One of the characteristics of intangible cultural heritage projects is inheritance, and while the popularity is increasing, Cheng Jinzhong has also shouldered a more important mission - to train the next generation of inheritors. "I hope that from me, the skills left by these ancestors can be passed on. In the course of the interview, the two words he said the most were "inheritance".
Hand-painted clothing can not be mechanized assembly line operation, a garment can only be painted by one person, because if you change a person, the drawing method will be different, and the final effect will be different. In Cheng Jinzhong's view, hand-painted clothing has a soul and must be done with heart. He believes that hand-painting of clothing is an art, an experience, and there is no way to standardize, and it must be taught face-to-face.
In order to pass on this unique hand-painted clothing skill in an orderly manner, Cheng Jinzhong has cultivated the fifth generation of inheritor - Liang Honghong. "I've taught more than 200 students, some of whom are already able to work independently, and Liang Honghong is the best among them. Cheng Jinzhong said that his students create thousands of hand-painted clothing works every year, and each work is unique.
Cheng Jinzhong told reporters that in order to pass on this skill, he often went to Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin Sino-German University of Applied Sciences and other institutions to teach students, and his studio "Painting Workshop" has also become a student practice base of Tianjin Polytechnic University.
In addition to teaching at the university, Cheng Jinzhong also regularly goes to Yueyang Dao Primary School to teach clothing hand-painted intangible cultural heritage courses. He believes that the obvious benefits of letting children understand and learn intangible cultural heritage are to open their eyes and gain insight. "Not only children, but also many adults do not know much about our intangible cultural heritage items, and in order to inherit and carry forward traditional culture, more people need to know about them first. With this foundation, we can talk about inheritance. The purpose of setting up intangible cultural heritage courses in primary schools is to cultivate children's interest in intangible cultural heritage items and to educate them in a fun way. Cheng Jinzhong said.
In Cheng Jinzhong's view, after having an interest in learning, it is also very important to provide children with the right basic training. He said: "Each industry has its own rules, and different intangible cultural heritage items are passed on in different ways. If it weren't taught by real inheritors, it would be difficult to understand how the project should be done. Each intangible cultural heritage item has experienced hundreds of years of inheritance, and the process of understanding and learning is actually a process of receiving the influence of excellent traditional culture. ”
In the future, we will send as much intangible cultural heritage as possible to schools and communities, so that more children and young people can understand clothing hand-painting, intangible cultural heritage, and traditional Chinese skills. At the end of the interview, Cheng Jinzhong, who has been associated with hand-painted clothing for more than 30 years, said that each hand-painted costume is infused with the temperature of craftsmen, and he hopes to pass on this temperature to more people with students. (Tonight reporter He Xin).