lacquer elephant |
lacquer vases |
lacquer plate |
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Selling Lacquerware in Bagan
Bamboo - Wicker Frame for the
lacquerware item
Coating of Lacquer is applied
Coating of Lacquer and Paint is
applied
Lacquer Paint is applied
Lacquerware Drying and Polishing
Creating Lacquerware
Lacquerware polishing
Colour and designs are worked
onto the lacquer objec
Traditional Lacquerware design
is etched onto the surface |
The centre of lacquer ware manufacture is Bagan in upper Myanmar.
It is a
cottage industry and in the village of Myinkaba alone, some 600 households
produce lacquer ware.
Visitors are welcome to watch the process, a skill
passed down from generation to generation. Golden Cuckoo Lacquer ware in Myinkaba and Ma Moe Moe Family Lacquer ware in Ywar Thit Quarter, New Bagan,
have English-speaking proprietors who are willing to demonstrate the
processes step by step.
The process begins with the making of a bamboo frame for the lacquer ware
item, a bowl for example. For objects of the highest quality, fine
horsehair, taken from the tail, is woven around the frame.
You can tell if
horsehair is used by pressing the sides of the bowl together — they should
touch.
Lower quality bowls are made completely of bamboo wicker woven around
the frame and are very stiff as a result.
Bamboo wicker or horsehair are traditional materials employed for
lacquer- ware products. Nowadays, cheaper and more durable wood — mainly
teak or mango plywood — is sometimes used to make bases for objects that are
not round in shape, trays, boxes, treasure chests, screens, tables and
chairs for example.
After the frame is made and bamboo wicker or
horsehair has been woven around it, the first coating of lacquer is
applied. The lacquer paint used is black and it comes from a resin of a
particular tree found around Inle Lake in eastern Myanmar.
The lacquer paint
is applied by hand which makes an even coating. The object is then left to
dry for a week in an underground cellar; drying in the sun in the early
stages causes pockmarks.
The object is then taken out for a second
coating of lacquer. It is left to dry for yet another week in the
cellar. The next stage involves covering the object with a paste made from a
mixture of pulverized buffalo bone, teak sawdust and lacquer to fill up any
nooks or crevices.
It is left to dry for a week. The object is then polished
with pumice stone to remove rough surfaces. Lacquer paint is again applied
and the object put aside to dry.
After another week, the object is polished
again, both on the inside and outside, using a mixture of clay and
stone. The polishing is done three times before the object is stored
underground for one month. Then a long process of painting and drying
begins.
First, the inside of the object is painted with lacquer
and left to
dry for a week; then the outside is painted and the object is again put
aside for drying.
At that stage the object is polished again with water and
stone, dried in the sun for two hours, another coat of lacquer is applied
and the object is dried underground for a week.
For the next seven weeks, a layer of
lacquer is applied at one-week intervals. The result is a shining lacquer
product made even glossier by careful polishing with a buffalo chamois
soaked in sesame oil. At this stage, the desired colour or colours and
designs are worked onto the object. Usually traditional designs are etched
onto the surface by very fine instruments.
Then one color is applied, the lacquerware is left to dry for a week, it is polished with rice husks,
washed with water and painted with acacia glue to fix the colour.
If another colour is required, more
details are etched and coated with the second colour, left to dry for a
week, washed and then fixed with acacia glue again. More etchings are made
and a third color is added and this time, the object is left to dry for a
month. Later, it is polished
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Lacquerware round Box with Gold
Leaves
Lacquerware round Box with
Flower
Tratitional Lacquerware Items
Myanmar Lacquerware Items
Native Style Lacquerware
Lacquerware Plate
Colour and designs are worked
onto the lacquer object
Lacquer Bowl and Lacquer Table
Lacquer ware Para vent Room
Divider Furniture
Lacquerware designs are etched
onto the surface
Lacquerware designs are etched
onto the surface |
first with teakwood
ash and water and then with a piece of cotton cloth. It is washed and dried again for ten minutes in the
sun and finally polished with a powder made from pulverized petrified wood.
That’s not all. The object is painted once more on the inside with red
lacquer, left to dry for one week and is finally ready for sale.
It takes five months to produce lacquer cups,
seven months to make betel boxes and at least a year to produce tables and
chairs. But the final result is without a doubt, a thing of beauty and a
fine testimony to Myanmar craftsmanship.
All about Japanese lacquer and exquisite
sprinkled pictures
Before I describe these unique and beautiful
works of art, exclusively Japanese, I feel that you need to know more about
Lacquer, the extraordinary medium that was used. Only then will you fully
appreciate these brilliant creations.
For readers who are unfamiliar with old Japanese Lacquer, I suspect you will
be thinking of the typical modern Lacquer trays and bowls that are
mass-produced. These items are very decorative, but completely fail to
compare with the magnificent earlier hand made works.
From China to Japan Lacquer is really the sap from a tree known as `Rhus
Vernicifera'. The Chinese were the first to discover and use it, at least a
century before Christ, when it was used as a paint, and more often as a
preservative. It was a very effective preservative, as many pieces still
exist from as far back as the Han period 206BC, when Lacquer was very
popular and in extensive use.
The earliest known Japanese Lacquer dates back to about the 7th Century, but
it was not until the 14th and 15th century that the Japanese Lacquer works
became so much more decorative. By then they had refined and created
exceptional techniques, far finer and more beautiful than the Chinese
lacquer that they had simply originally copied.
The Chinese had used shades of black, brown, yellow, green, and mostly red
or cinnabar Lacquer. They mainly favoured deep carving of the Lacquer, to
form the decoration, and produced some outstanding work.
They often applied the colours in layers, so that once carved, these colours
would be revealed. One particular technique is known as `Guri' Lacquer: the
colours mostly red and black were built up in layers, and then a geometric
or symmetrical pattern would be carved with a deep `V' shaped cut, so that
all these alternating layers would be revealed within the cuts. The Chinese
also painted, incised and inlaid Lacquer with iridescent pieces of shell,
but these works were treasured by the Japanese often more so, than by the
Chinese.
To begin with all these methods were copied, but by about the 15th century
the Japanese had become, justifiably, the unrivalled masters of the art!
Lacquer was, quite rightly, highly valued for its lasting qualities and
strength. A very high gloss could be achieved, proving impervious to
alcohol, acids and hot liquids. It would also have appealed to the Zen
Buddhism ideals of `Yin and Yang', as Lacquer appears to be so delicately
beautiful and light in weight. Yet, it is hard, impermeable and enduring.
The preparation It is a very difficult medium to work with, uncompromising,
sticky, and time consuming. It had to be strained to remove any impurities,
and gently heated to thicken, and evaporate any moisture content. All the
time it had to be kept in a dust free environment, and added to these
difficulties, in its liquid form it gives off a poisonous gas! Strangely, it
requires a damp humid atmosphere for it to harden.
It had to be applied in very thin layers, otherwise it runs, and if too
thick, will not harden at all but will just form a skin. After each layer
had hardened, all the time in a dust free area, it was carefully rubbed down
before another layer would be added.
An average piece consisted of a minimum of 30 layers, in order that there
would not be a trace of the wood base, or on larger pieces the hemp cloth
applied in the early layers, to help strengthen the wood. The Lacquer Artist
would have taken over, only at this stage, to create the decoration by the
addition of yet even more layers.
The number of colours possible, due to chemical reactions with pigments and
the composition of Lacquer were limited. So Lacquer artists were still
restricted and blue was a very rare colour.
It was the Japanese that developed the idea and the techniques of adding
gold and silver to liven up the decoration. Real gold and silver metals were
used in the form of foil, flakes, metal particles of various grades, as well
as powders. All of these precious metals were brilliantly used to great
advantage, particularly in the late 18th and early 19th century.
The sprinkling of gold or silver metal particles had been used before and
over a very long period, to brighten up the interiors. Even very early
Lacquer works have `Nashiji' inside. This is where fine particles of gold
have simply been sprinkled in to the Lacquer. Some were scattered unevenly,
producing cloud effects, whilst others varied in the density. However no
pictures were formed.
Sprinkled, not painted! In the 18th century they invented and refined the
idea of sprinkled pictures, and these were used to great effect in what are
known as `Togadashi' pieces. They are easily identified, as the surface of
the Lacquer is always perfectly smooth in Togadashi work.
These designs and amazing pictures were created purely, by very skilfully
pouring various grades of fine metal and pigment powders on to the wet
Lacquer, so that they would sink in. There was no way of correcting any
errors! Extra layers of the background colour, normally black, would be
added over the picture. Then by carefully polishing down until the picture
reappears, the top edges of the metal particles would be made to glisten
from the polish, providing brilliance impossible to achieve any other way.
The last very thin coats would be of the purest clear Lacquer, providing the
mirror like high gloss finish.
Various shades of black were created, by charcoal mixed with different
quantities of silver powder, so that they could even simulate painted brush
strokes. These powders were mainly used for black pictures on a gold
background, that one would never imagine were created by sprinkling
techniques. What is also quite remarkable, is the very fine degree of
control in shading that they were able to achieve. This meant that far more
sophisticated pictures could be created, than had ever been seen before.
There are three types of sprinkled picture techniques in all and Togadashi,
already described, is my favourite! Another is `Hiramakie', which is where
quite a thickly sprinkled gold powder is used, and the lacquer is raised
just a little above the background. As usual the surface is polished and
burnished, before the final clear layers, and has a very rich appearance.
Lastly, there is `Takamakie', which is again similar to Hiramakie, only it
is in much higher relief. This thickness was achieved by building up and
modelling the areas required in relief, with a combination of Lacquer and
charcoal, before applying the gold powder layers.
Highlights of pure gold Many Lacquer artists made use of a combination of
these techniques in a piece of work. Just to further enrich these pictures,
finely shaped tiny pieces of pure gold, so small that it is hard to imagine
how they were handled, are individually applied near the final surface to
create highlights. Frequently these are exactly matched shapes, tiny squares
or diamond pieces that are all so amazingly very accurately placed.
Togadashi Boxes One of our favourite examples of this type of work in this
collection is a fine Box that appears as two overlapping boxes. One shows
the figure of the swordsmith forging the sword `Little Fox', assisted by the
Fox Spirit in the guise of a woman; the other has an overall design of a
mass of gold and coloured flowers.
Looking closely at the gold centres of the flowers one can see how these
consist of a number of very tiny shaped flakes of gold; each flake has been
carefully placed by hand.
It also has a marvellous fitted tray just in gold Togadashi of three foxes
running in a landscape with a really dream like quality. The border of the
tray is decorated in `Gyobu', which is where each individual flake of gold
has also been positioned by hand, rather than sprinkled.
Another wonderful Box that is purely, fine Togadashi, depicts a busy street
market scene, and what more can I say, other than it is an outstanding piece
of work!
Neither of these boxes is signed, but they are nevertheless, of the finest
quality. To see the photographs please use the link at the end of this
article. These wonderful lacquer works feature on Japanese inro too (the
subject of another article).
Modern works A word of warning when buying lacquer, it is important that the
condition is both good and original. As there are now some cleverly repaired
pieces on the market, expert advice should always be obtained.
Fine Lacquer is made even today, and there are certain living traditional
Lacquer artists who are held in very high esteem in Japan. So much so, that
some have been designated as `Living National Treasures', and their
contemporary hand made Lacquer work is in high demand and extremely
expensive.
I have seen an example, at a Lacquer study weekend held at the V & A museum.
A remarkable modern box that combined thick clear Perspex with black Lacquer
in a geometric design that really was very dramatic. Personally I still
prefer the earlier works and for the cost of this modern box a very good
collection could be formed!
See the photographs for this article by using the following link: - http://www.jncohen.net/antiques/articles.htm
http://www.jncohen.net/Japanese_lacquer/index.htm
About the Author John Cohen
The author has been a very keen collector for many years creating 'The Cohen
collection'.
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