Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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The medallions impart a great sense of diversity not only
because of the choice of motifs and their meanings, but also because
of the painstaking planning their creator has lavished on them to
enhance their visual charm. To break up the uniformity in colour, the
embroiderer has used threads of different shades of blue. In addition,
she has used many stitching techniques, including satin stitch, stem
stitch, back stitch, straight stitch, pine-needle stitch, knot stitch, and
double running stitch. The potential of the last one has even been
exploited to its fullest in the border running on three sides of the
valance. No less than eleven lace-like diaper patterns were created
to serve as a textured background to set off auspicious designs that
fill reserves of scalloped or angular shapes. As well, many of these
delightful patterns also appear in the component parts of the motifs
that make up two of the medallions, using the hua bao hua decorative
method.50
THIS BED VALANCE is unusual in the way the two fundamental
colours are combined and in the layout of the decorative elements.
Instead of the more common blue-on-white format, the motifs are
depicted in the opposite manner—white on blue. The images, depicted
in a light colour, really stand out against the dark background.
Aside from aesthetic considerations, the effective colour contrast may
also have two practical advantages. Since valances are not cleaned
very often, the dark blue ground would stand up to soil better than
a white ground; and white motifs could still be appreciated in both
the soft daylight entering the bedroom and the faint illumination at
night.
Also contributing to the striking visual effect of this work is the
minimalist approach undertaken by the embroiderer. The images are
worked in large scale and in cross stitch only. They are laid out side
by side as three groups against a background devoid of any secondary
elements, such as border patterns and fillers. This straightforward
design ensures that the observer's attention is focused on the designs
and their symbolic messages.
Starting from the left, a cat sits gingerly on a stand in front of a
chrysanthemum branch. In the middle is a lion flanked by the huge
blossoms of a hydrangea. On the right is a mottled rabbit. Similar to
the cat, it is perched on a stand in front of another variety of chrysanthemum.
The first composite motif signifies a desire for long life. The cat
(mao) plays the role of a homophone to evoke the idea of advanced
age which is embodied in another character having the same sound
(mao, meaning a person having reached eighty years old). The chrysanthemum
expands the idea.51 A third element that reinforces the
same meaning is a decorative detail on the stand: the meander pattern
depicted around the apron signifies a desire for continuity.
The second motif reflects a very creative design concept. In
traditional design repertoire one or two lions would be represented
playing with an embroidered ball (xiuqiu). Underlying such motif
is the idea of fertility, evoked by the belief that an offspring would
emerge from a ball of entangled hair formed by a pair of playful lions
during lovemaking.52 When this idea is expressed visually the ball of
hair assumes the guise of an embroidered ball. In the present case,
the embroidered ball is replaced by a branch of hydrangea (xiuqiu),
a plant that produces large round heads of sterile flowers. In name,
50. BED VALANCE, Cotton, 1900-1925, Chengdu, Sichuan province, 980.287.28,
L. 187 cm x W. 42 cm
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