“Starry Night” Taken from the original oil painting by Van Gogh

Embroidery core size: 100X80cm

September 2020 Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Masterpiece Grand Prix, 11th Yibo Cup Bronze Award

“Starry Night”

Creation Notes

A Splendid Fusion of Yiran Embroidery and a Classic Oil Painting

In September 2020, on the stage of the Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Masterpiece Grand Prix, the 11th Yibo Cup, the work “Starry Night” by Yangzhou Lihao Yiran Embroidery Research Institute won the Bronze Award.

This work uses Van Gogh’s classic oil painting “Starry Night” as its draft. Under the leadership and artistic guidance of Master Zhu Juncheng, embroidery artists such as Zhu Zhidan, Zhu Youxiong, Zhang Minglan, and Luo Chunyan used exquisite skills to give this classic Western painting a unique charm in the form of Su embroidery.

From the perspective of exquisite craftsmanship, the work’s restoration of color is superb. The intense and fantastical colors in Van Gogh’s painting are delicately presented through the Yiran Embroidery Method. The blue night sky is profound and mysterious; the embroiderers used silk threads of various shades of blue, through ingenious interweaving and transition, creating a sense of layering and flow in the night sky, as if the nebula were slowly rotating. The yellow stars and moon are bright and dazzling; the luster of the silk threads perfectly combines with the purity of the colors, like real stars twinkling in the night sky, forming a strong visual contrast with the night sky, fully presenting the fantastical color atmosphere of the original work.

In the handling of lines in the picture, the advantages of the Yiran Embroidery Method are fully demonstrated. The outlines of the village and the forms of the cypress trees are outlined clearly and rhythmically through embroidery threads of varying lengths and density. The twisted, upward lines of the cypress trees are full of power; the arrangement of the embroidery threads not only expresses the form of the cypress trees but also reflects the texture of their surface, as if one could touch the roughness of the trunk. The roofs and walls of the village have simple and regular lines, yet without losing delicacy, and every brick and tile seems to have its own light and shadow changes.

The swirling and nebula parts of the picture are the essence of the craftsmanship. The embroiderers used agile stitching and varied directions of silk threads to simulate the dynamic and tense nebula swirls of the original work. The winding and interweaving of the silk threads, like energy flowing and gathering in the universe, leave one amazed by this exquisite craftsmanship.

The Yiran embroidery work “Starry Night” is a successful model of the integration of Eastern and Western art. It not only demonstrates the embroiderers’ profound understanding of Van Gogh’s classic painting, but also highlights the powerful ability of random-stitch embroidery craftsmanship in expressing complex works of art. Winning the Bronze Award at the 11th Yibo Cup is an affirmation of its artistic value and craftsmanship level, and also opens a new path for Su embroidery art in the creation of diverse subjects.