Beautiful West Lake Silk Umbrella, China Umbrella Museum

Silk has long been used as a canopy material, especially after the middle Tang Dynasty. With the popularity of silk, silk umbrellas became more popular. Lin’an in the Southern Song Dynasty is a national umbrella center. There are many kinds of silk umbrellas in the market. There are large and small yellow umbrellas, cool umbrellas, red and green umbrellas and square umbrellas for customers to choose. In modern times, Hangzhou West Lake silk umbrella, as the most beautiful one of the silk umbrella family, stood out and became the prominent representative of Chinese silk umbrella. The West Lake Silk Umbrella is made of bamboo as a bone, with silk face, small and exquisite, elegant style, and the shape of the umbrella head draws more from the “Three Pools” in the West Lake. In addition to paying attention to artistic changes, the shape of the handle handle also requires comfortable feel and smooth lines. . At the same time, the shape of the flower line and the shape of the umbrella buckle have a folk flavor, and also the exquisite craftsmanship of the silk umbrella, with a strong local color of Jiangnan.

3•1: Birth of the West Lake Silk Umbrella
West Lake Silk Umbrella is the first of its kind in Hangzhou Dujinsheng Silk Weaving Landscape Factory. Hangzhou’s famous industrialist Du Jinsheng organized a group of workers to study in Japan. They were inspired by the Japanese umbrella. After returning to China, they decided to use Hangzhou local bamboo and silk to create a better silk umbrella than the umbrella. Du Jinsheng tried and tried at all costs, and went to the craftsmanship of folk umbrellas. After many twists and turns, he overcame many difficulties. He finally decided to use the special bamboo ribs unique in the suburbs of Hangzhou to make the decoration on the silk umbrella surface with the western lake landscape pattern printing process. Because the umbrella surface is made of Hangzhou silk and decorated with the pattern of the West Lake scenery, it is called “West Lake Silk Umbrella”.

Du Jinsheng (1897 ~ 1943), No. Lubin, Hangzhou. In 1919, he graduated from Zhejiang A Kind of Industrial School, and he taught at the school. In the teaching practice, I personally woven China’s first silk landscape painting “Jiuxi Eighteen”. In 1922, the Jinjinsheng Silk Weaving Factory was held in Hangzhou Maojiatun. In 1932, Du Jinsheng brought back several Japanese umbrellas from Japan and used them as a sample to make silk umbrellas. Du Jinsheng asked Wenzhou and Fuyang umbrella artists to solve the problem of making the ribs, and used the pattern of the West Lake to decorate the umbrella surface with the brushwork technique.

3•2: Making of West Lake Silk Umbrella
The West Lake silk umbrella is well-made. There are 18 processes in the whole process of production. The technical requirements are strict and meticulous. Among them, the processes of indigo, shelf, cutting, paste, umbrella decoration, threading, and sapling are especially important. For example, wearing a flower line, an umbrella should be threaded in a fine gap, and the mesh pattern is crossed back and forth. A total of 296 needles are worn. The craftsmanship is exquisite and the production is delicate. It is amazing. Another example is the green, asking the producer to glue each green of the bamboo bone to the silk surface of the original rib, if the umbrella is folded and returned to a natural bamboo. The umbrella of the West Lake Silk Umbrella is mostly shaped by the “Three Pools of the Moon”, with elegant taste and unique Hangzhou charm.

Form:
Each of the West Lake Silk Umbrellas has 35 ribs, each of which is 0.4 cm wide. If it is 36, it needs to be “pulsed” to keep the bamboo round and the bamboo flat.

material:
The ribs are made of Jiangnan’s unique light bamboo. This kind of bamboo enamel is fine and clean, the color is jade, and it will not bend when it is exposed to the sun. It is the superior material of the silk umbrella rib. When you are near the white dew, choose the bamboo with a bamboo age of more than three years, uniform color, no yin and yang and spotted scorpion, take 2 to 4 sections. It is made up of 32 or 36 thin strips from a light bamboo tube. It is also equipped with a bone brace to form a rib. When it is opened, it is a round umbrella. When it is closed, it is like a round bamboo.

3•3: A variety of West Lake silk umbrellas
In the early West Lake silk umbrellas, only the flowers were painted, and the patterns were mainly landscapes. There were 9 kinds of “Pinghu Qiuyue” and “Santan Yinyue”. The Hangzhou Institute of Arts and Crafts established the Silk Umbrella Research Group, which was chaired by Zhu Zhenfei. The printing, umbrella decoration, head handle shape and performance of silk umbrellas were reformed and innovated to make the products more perfect. At present, there are more than 10 varieties of silk umbrellas in the West Lake. In the form of a canopy pattern, it can be divided into a brush umbrella, an embroidery umbrella, and a painting umbrella. Brushing flowers, painting flowers and embroidering on the umbrella surface, commonly known as the “three flowers” in the silk umbrella process.

Chinese Umbrella Museum
The China Umbrella Museum is located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The misty rain Jiangnan derives a unique umbrella culture. The aesthetics of the umbrella, the poetry of the umbrella and the symbolic meaning of the umbrella accompany this historical development wheel, and a unique cultural track is crushed.

The China Umbrella Museum is a world-first umbrella theme museum that combines umbrella culture, umbrella history, umbrella stories, umbrella crafts and umbrella art represented by China.

The exhibition area of ​​the China Umbrella Museum is 2411m2, and the temporary exhibition hall has a construction area of ​​527m2. Located in the historical and cultural district of the West Bridge of Gongyi Bridge, with the arched bridge as the landmark, the Hangzhou Arts and Crafts Museum, the Chinese Knives and Sword Museum, the Chinese Fan Museum, and the Handicraft Living Exhibition Hall form a museum full of rich history and culture. The community has become a new cultural landscape in the north of Hangzhou. Walking through the museums is a journey of nostalgia and love with a memory of the canal.

The umbrella is fascinated by the rain. The Chinese Umbrella Museum and the rain are inseparable. The virtual rain scene and small water mist of the multimedia interpretations are used as renderings. The entire venue is dominated by white-walled gray tiles, which reminds people of Dai Wangshu’s pen. In the long and lonely rain alley, the girl with a paper umbrella alone.

The museum also has an interactive area where you can assemble parts for the umbrella, draw umbrellas and repair umbrellas.