Hand-Knotted Silk Rugs: One Million Knots Per Square Meter

Close-up of a hand-knotted silk rug with extremely high knot density—over a thousand knots per square decimeter—allowing the pattern lines to be as fine as a painting, with smooth curves and no stepped jagged edges. The luster of the silk changes with the viewing angle: dark when viewed with the pile, bright when viewed against it, thus the same area appears in two different luminosities within the frame. The pattern is classical vines and flowers, with colors primarily indigo, ochre, and ivory, but due to natural dyes, there are subtle color variation stripes between different batches of yarn of the same color. The edge finishing is hand-wrapped. Oblique side lighting. Avoid: using the uniform texture of machine-woven rugs, jagged lines in the pattern, perfectly uniform colors without variation, photographing from directly above with flat lighting.

Translated from Chinese by AI.

一張手工打結絲毯的近景,結密度極高——每平方公寸超過一千結——因此圖案的線條可以細到接近繪畫,曲線平滑沒有階梯狀的鋸齒。絲的光澤隨觀看角度改變:順著絨毛看是深色,逆著看是亮的,因此同一塊區域在畫面裡呈現兩種明度。圖案是古典的藤蔓與花卉,顏色以靛藍、赭紅與象牙為主,但因為天然染料的關係,同一色在不同批次的線之間有細微的色差條紋。邊緣的收邊是手工纏繞的。斜射的側光。避免:使用機器織的均勻質感、圖案線條出現鋸齒、顏色完全均勻沒有色差、拍成正上方的平光。