The Feng Shui Susho
Feng Shui and Susho (刺绣 Ci Xiu) are both ancient arts which create beautiful and nurturing spaces. With Susho’s myriad of choices for colors, design elements and subjects, creating rooms designed with Feng Shui will be a breeze. Please visit our Feng Shui Collection to see how Susho enhances Feng Shui designed spaces.
When you combine Feng Shui design with the proper Susho, the light, the color, the imagery, the shadows, the depth, the soul of the silk artwork, uplifts you. Feng Shui brings peace, balance and harmony, Susho allows for a peak into the heart.
Apart from the beauty of the ancient spirituality, Feng Shui is rooted in environmental psychology. A toolkit for creating a happy and healthy environment for all who share it. Susho will give the environment a more personal expression.
The words Feng Shui translate to “wind” and “water”. Wind and water are powerful natural forces and represent the flow of natural energy through the world. Directing natural energy, Chi, is fundamental to Feng Shui functional design. Susho and Feng Shui help a decorator lighten a dark corner without making it a focal point, or create a meaningful focal point in a room suffering from cluttered focus.
The spirituality of Feng Shui suggests every object has its own unique energy. By the clutter in our rooms, anyone can see every object has mass.
Designing a space purged to meaningful objects, is a healthy way to create a positive environment. However, displaying objects with sentimental value is a basic act of self-expression to most of us.
Feng Shui’s balancing act results in an expressive room without claustrophobia. Susho is very easy to fall in love with for the aesthetics alone, but the symbols are also a conduit to a heartfelt emotional or spiritual expression.
As with all cultures, the Chinese people celebrate nature and sacred feelings with beautiful symbols. In practice, symbols attract good fortune and repel misfortune. The five most attractive types of good fortune are good luck, happiness, longevity, prosperity and wealth.
In Chinese culture, horses symbolize speed and energy, attracting good fortune quickly. Your favorite horse collector will love our beautiful black stallion running on the beach, but also might cherish a blessing for rapid successes. Our Wildlife Collection has a stunning selection of images for Feng Shui designers and collectors of unique animal images.
Feng Shui expresses the concept of Chi, nature’s energies, through “The Five Elements”, Earth, Fire, Metal, Water and Wood.
Each element evokes a specific benefit. A balanced representation of these elements, whether literal or through color, creates an environment with overall positive and productive energy.
The riverscape above contains all five elements. Earth, water and wood are literal. The river rocks represent metal and the vivid reds, oranges and yellows of the autumn leaves represent the final element, fire.
Our amazing camel caravan through the desert is a powerful expression of a single element, earth. Along with the radiant dunes, glowing in silk, the golden color palate of this Susho is specific to the Feng Shui element of earth. Earth evokes stability and security, representing a strong and nurturing home.
Please visit our Landscapes Collection and search for any of The Five Elements.
Individual colors attract specific benefits. Red is the ultimate color for good fortune. Red scares away evil spirits and lures a good future. The myth behind this belief dates back thousands of years and has great meaning to our home, Suzhou.
As the legend goes, a monster called Nian (年 Year) appeared every New Year’s Day and devoured all the villagers he could. The villagers discovered Nian weakness, fireworks and bright red frightened him. The courageous villagers kept Nian at bay with loud and colorful displays at every appearance.
To this day, Chinese people all over the world celebrate New Year’s Day with fireworks and lots of red. The first day of the New Year inaugurates the two week Spring Festival. In Suzhou, the red lanterns are famously everywhere during the Spring Festival, a favorite spectacle with tourists and natives alike. The radiant works of Susho to the left and below are from our Chinese Traditional Collection.
Red is also symbolic of courage and honor. The red plum blossom is a very rare winter plum. More commonly, white plums blossoms appear in the spring. Red plum blossoms are a symbol of the strength that comes from surviving a harsh winter, and the good fortune that comes with strength of character. The upper left corner characters read Heralding Spring, and the year when the original was painted.
With so much symbolic meaning, red is ubiquitous in Chinese culture, Feng Shui and Susho. Brides in China wear red and red front doors are very common. The beautiful bride below is from our Chinese Contemporary Collection.
To the left, you see the endless dance between a Yang Dragon and a Yin Phoenix, in Susho from our Chinese Traditional Collection.
Feng Shui attempts to balance the Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) energies of nature. A practical method of decorating a master bedroom to include a wife’s floral preferences with her husband’s desire for a little more power and drama.
If a very masculine or feminine room needs to be more accommodating, Susho can provide elements that will pull the room in the other direction smoothly, without creating a jarring affect.
The character and resolution of this powerful tiger from our Wildlife Collection is perfect to add a touch of Yang to a gentleman’s environment.
The marking on the Bengal Tiger’s forehead is the Mandarin character for Emperor (王). In Feng Shui, tigers are a strong symbol of masculine energy and a powerful attractant of good fortune. The softness of the silk and artistry of the needlework balance the extreme Yang nature of the subject.
The meaning of numbers is another aspect of Feng Shui design. When combined with other design elements, certain numbers correct energy; cure a problem or support a positive outcome.
For example, cranes represent longevity. The number two represents a marriage, so an artistic representation of two cranes foretells a long marriage.
The crane portrait to the left, from our Wildlife Collection, also contains the colors to provide energy for Earth, Fire, Metal, Water and Wood from The Five Elements. A perfect balance.
The elegant Susho below is detailed and stylized, full of depth and imagery. In Chinese culture, sparrows symbolically represent safety in numbers, or the security of a strong family bond. The number nine in Chinese symbology represents eternity. In addition, the bamboo shoots represent a desire to bring peace, fortune and good luck to your family. This wonderful array of symbols means an eternal happy and cohesive family life.
In Chinese culture, usually due to the similarity in sound to other words, certain numbers are lucky or unlucky. The number eight is especially lucky. The sound of the word is similar to prosperity and symbolically the number represents perfect completion, the end of a natural cycle.
In Chinese myths, cranes lead extraordinarily long lives and Emperor Cranes are especially magical in this regard. These red headed birds are extremely rare and legendarily bring a long life and good health to anyone who is lucky enough to spot one. With a touch of lucky red, they make a beautiful image and are the national bird of China.
Due to our origins in the garden city of Suzhou, flowers and gardens are frequent subject for Susho and perfect for Feng Shui design. A Moon Gate is a garden door in the shape of a full moon, which is symbolic for unity and peace.
The Moon Gate's circular opening in the garden wall acts as a pedestrian passageway, and is a traditional architectural element in Chinese gardens. The purpose of these gates is to serve as a very inviting entrance into gardens of the nobility in China. Intricately carved garden gates like this one were only in the gardens of wealthy Chinese nobles.
Moon Gates are full of different spiritual meanings, every piece of tile on the gate itself all the way through the roof and the frame.
Some Susho designs tell great stories, both historic and symbolic. A Year of Good Luck is a symbol-filled blessing for any home.
The circle represents eternal harmony and balance. The words fish and wealth are very similar, so in Chinese culture, fish symbolize wealth; Koi fish in particular, symbolize financial success.
The words for orange and wealth are also similar; oranges are popular gifts as New Year’s Day blessings. The lotus blossom and leaves at the center of the circle symbolize prosperity.
To tie the story together, the lucky twelve koi fish each represent a different year on the Chinese calendar. As the sun moves around the horizon during the day and strikes each fish, the good luck and benefits from the fish’s year will flow into the home.
A symbolic blessing for prosperity, success and wealth. A wish to receive all the good luck a year has to offer, every single day.
We cannot leave the topic of Feng Shui and Susho without a look at some of the most exquisite Susho we make, our peacocks. In Chinese and Buddhist culture, the peacock represents beauty, nobility and dignity, as you can see from the portraits below, Susho does the concept justice. Please visit our Wildlife Collection to see our stunning collection of peacocks.
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As with our cranes above, pairs (two) represents a marriage, so an artistic representation of a peafowl couple promises a beautiful and noble marriage. Both of these gorgeous portraits balance the dramatic Yang display of the peacock with the rather different Yin responses of the peahens. The duo to the right are Indian Blue Peafowl. Peacocks are the national bird of India and are extremely popular. Peacocks figure prominently in Hindu |
In Indian culture, peacocks are the representation of beauty, fertility and love, especially erotic love of the painful variety. Not surprisingly, peacocks are the subject of many an Indian legend.
Whether your interest in Feng Shui is spiritual or secular, Susho will be a valuable tool in expressing yourself and your intentions in any environment.
