| Medals for the
Nagano Olympics |
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Olympic Medals
The 1998 Winter Olympics held at the Nagano Prefecture venue
had a special surprise for medal winners. Competition medals
were made with three processes: cloisonné which
is found both in the Orient and Occident, the decorative lacquer
technique known as maki-e, an intricate metal processing
technique. The Kiso
area of Nagano Prefecture is one of Japan's famous lacquer ware
centers; maki-e is a complex technique involving the
application of numerous grades and types of metallic dusts,
bits, flecks, slivers, and the like, particularly gold, to a
lacquered ground.
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Urushi--A Part of Life
Lacquer (urushi) has been an integral part of the Japanese
lifestyle; it is taken for granted as part of life and treasured
for its many qualities. It has been used as a protective and
decorative coating material for at least six thousand years
in Japan. Lacquer-coated earthenware pots and wooden combs have
been found in Japanese Neolithic sites carbon dated to about
4500 b.c. Urushi may well be mankind's first true
paint and superglue.
From early historic times until the present, urushi has
been used to coat such things as temple and shrine interiors;
furniture and chests; sliding doors; walls and architectural
interior trim; eating vessels of every type; casks, ewers, and
bottles; personal accessories; chopsticks, lamp stands, paper
products, and so on. The list is indeed long. Urushi's
soft surface, gentle yet bright gloss and deep colors fit the
traditional Japanese room interior--that is, urushi looks
and feels right in a room composed of tatami mats, wood, earth,
and paper. The traditional Japanese New Year repast is incomplete
without lacquer ware. Particularly, special decorative lacquered
tiered boxes are brought out at this time to contain the festive
fare. Today, urushi is even used to decorate such things
as elevator doors and computer cases. |
| Tapping a lacquer
tree for sap |
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A Living Substance
Urushi is the sap of a tree (Rhus verniciflua).
It in no way resembles the smelly stuff made in petrochemical
plants, sold in little cans, and used to paint bicycles and
model cars. (Both substances share the quality of having a high
gloss, however, which is why both are called "lacquer.")
Japanese lacquer is a living substance, even after it has been
refined and pigmented and applied in numerous coatings to a
wooden core.
After the urushi sap has been removed from the urushi
tree, it is aged for from three to five years and then processed
to form a number of lacquer types with different properties.
When urushi is applied as a thin coating over a (usually
wooden) core, it undergoes a chemical hardening process (very
different from evaporative drying) in conditions of high humidity
and temperature. A hardened urushi coating repels water
and resists acid, alkali, salt, and alcohol. It even insulates
against heat and electricity. Urushi contains urushiol
(the same stuff as is found in poison oak and ivy), which
is responsible for lacquer's wonderful material properties
as well as giving some people a month or so of severe itching
if liquid urushi is touched. The complex organic structure
of urushi resisted analysis until the last decade or
so, and there are still mysteries that need clarification.
The impervious yet resilient surface, a surface that is terribly
strong yet soft to the touch, has given lacquer ware its appeal
over the millennia.
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Profound Influence
| Bowls, Joboji
Lacquer Ware |
|
From the earlist days of Far Eastern trade, Europe admired and
coveted Oriental lacquer ware. The palaces and great manor houses
of Europe were and still are filled with decorative lacquer
pieces. European craftsmen tried long and hard to emulate the
glossy black (and red) of the urushi objects and panels
from China and Japan. Urushi sap was not available, so
alternative substances were sought. This led to advances in
traditional methods of refining pine resin into varnishes, providing
a great stimulus for advances in the pigment and chemical industries
in Europe. Satisfyingly glossy surfaces were eventually made
with varnishes, and such objects, particularly with a high-gloss
black ground, came to be known in England as "Japan-work"
and the craft of making them as "Japaning."
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Approaches for the Future
The real drama and romance of urushi lies not in the decoration,
but in the complex processes that lie beneath the decoration.
Every lacquer-working area of Japan has a different approach.
The durability of lacquer ware is the result both of the high
quality of the urushi refining process and of the composition
of numerous undercoatings. This complexity is why lacquer work
is a community craft (one of the few such in the world)--no
single individual can possibly do all the various stages of
the work and still make a living.
Today's lacquer craftspeople and artists have millennia
of experience and tradition and technique behind them. Still,
perhaps because the processes are slow and demand an intensity
of concentration and much patience, the entire craft is basically
conservative. Only in the last ten years or so has what might
be called a basic change in approach and aesthetic appeared.
Young craftsmen and artists have come to realize that the
various stages in the lacquering process have potential as
aesthetic statements. Thus, some young wood
turners who make cores for lacquered bowls and trays have
taken up the slow, pedal-driven lathes of their great-grandfather's
time and are utilizing the warm effects of fortuitous lathe
marks and expressive surfaces resulting from this primitive
tool to make pieces of charm and artistry. Some urushi
artists apply strips of urushi-soaked textile, formerly
used just to reinforce edges, to make decorative statements.
These new approaches are finding ready acceptance in the West.
That urushi finds its natural harmony in the interior
of a traditional Japanese room is true enough, and it is also
true that lacquered objects lend grace and poetry to a Western
room and setting. Urushi has a bright potential future
outside of Japan.
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Tray with trailed black
lacquer by a young
artist in Wajima |
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