by Kyle Stults on February 03, 2010
蒔絵 – The Making of a “Sprinkled Picture”
Like a highly skilled watchmaker, the maki-e artisan is able to create with his hands something so intricate, so delicate, so amazing…it’s hard to put it into words. All I will say is that these artisans are skilled in ways that I deeply respect and admire. Watch:
About Maki-e
Maki-e – which literally means “sprinkled picture” – is the most sophisticated of all lacquer techniques, designating a decorative operation in which the design is created by delicately sprinkling gold or silver dust over lacquer – usually black – while it is still wet.
The lacquer is made from the sap of the lacquer tree, Rhus verniciflua. This tree, a relative of poison ivy, originated on the high plateaus of central Asia or Tibet. Today, it grows only in southern China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, but it seems to have had a much wider range in the past. In Japanese, the word for the substance and the name of the tree are the same: urushi.
Lacquer techniques vary from country to country and are based on the quality of the lacquer and the use to which the objects will be put. The three categories most representative of the lacquer arts are carving, inlay, and maki-e. The number of possibilities is almost infinite, and the invention of maki-e and its variations by the Japanese is one of the most remarkable marriages of technical mastery and aesthetic sophistication in all the history of art. This decorative technique developed very early in Japanese history. It matured as an art form between the eighth and twelfth centuries A.D., becoming the predominant method of ornamentation beginning in the seventeenth century and remaining so to this day. It does not seem to have been used in China – or if it was, it disappeared very early on. It was highly prized there, however, as evidenced by the many orders placed from the continent over the centuries. Maki-e’s own rise allowed the techniques it involves to blossom as well. Beginning in the mid-tenth century, this technique far surpassed all its rivals and was heavily preferred over them for the delicacy of its execution, its quality of being distinct yet misty at the same time, and its incredibly poetic presence.
One of the greatest beauties of lacquer is that it can decorate the most precious of objects as easily as those used in everyday life. Lacquerware bowls and crockery have come down through the centuries, as have variously shaped boxes with all sorts of uses: document holders, tea caddies, incense boxes, paintbrush holders, inkwells, card cases, pill boxes, etc. While there has always been lacquered furniture, the preference has almost always been for small objects, for work that is enchanting in its meticulous perfection.
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