Qiandongnan The West Town Hmong Embroidery Patterns Art Research

China is a united country with many ethnic groups, one of which is Miao people with their unique culture. Miao's craft art is a great treasure with various forms, one of which is its singular and amazing embroidery art. Miao's embroidery, evidence to its art development, is a heritage and respect of Miao's traditional culture.Miao embroidery was their unique symbols since they did not have any characters. The embroidery on Miao's clothes replaced characters and thus helped Miao people form their own wordless history. Many Miao people took up residence in southwest Guizhou Province, China. They created different kinds of clothes and embroidery. Their embroidery is exquisite with various themes like Chinese dragon, birds, fish, bronze drum, flowers, butterflies, and some images that could reflect Miao history. Its embroidery techniques had12categories. So far, many experts and scholars had researched on embroidery from the several perspectives like ethnologic and artistic. Also, there were many works describing embroidery as a whole; however, seldom have any writings focused on specific research. Therefore, this thesis attempted to conduct an in-depth study on particular embroidery patterns.Based on field research and related works, this thesis was aimed at studying geometric, animal, plant and other mythical patterns on Xijiang County's Miao clothing and interpreting their symbolism and profound cultural meanings, from the perspectives of myth and legend, religious belief, totemism and so on. The author had learned about their regional cultural traits, origin and development of embroidery and underlying folk culture through field study in Xijiang Town, southwest Guizhou Province. This thesis mainly focused on embroidery images'origin, themes, artistic features and symbolic meanings, as well as analyzing the characteristics of Miao embroidery.This thesis is divided into five parts, namely, Introduction, Origin of embroidery art, Artistic study of embroidery art, analyzed embroidery images classified by origins of embroidery designs in Xijiang Town, Southwest Guizhou Province, and Heritage and protection of embroidery art in Xijiang Town, Southwest Guizhou Province.The first chapter introduced the topic's origin, significance, research methodology, definition and literary review. The second chapter described geographical and historical environment of Xijiang Town, Southwest Guizhou, as well as the development of embroidery art. The third and the fourth chapter narrated embroidery techniques, and analyzed embroidery images classified by origins of embroidery designs, artistic features, aesthetic analysis, and symbolic connotations. The fifth chapter introduced the embroidery heritage and protection in Xijiang Town, from the perspectives of embroidery commercialization and marketing status, its international position, and its protection and development. Meanwhile, some ideas and thoughts related to this subject would also be introduced.Miao's embroidery art, part of ethnic arts and crafts, inherited Miao's unique artistic and aesthetic value. The embroidery as a cultural phenomenon had far-reaching research value so as to fully explore Miao's history, folklore, religion, and creed etc. Therefore, the protection and research on Miao embroidery was of great significance.