Lacquer, first used as a sealant for furniture and
wooden utensils, began to be applied as much for
its aesthetic properties as its practical functions.
A family in central Taiwan has preserved the craft
and creates works of art from the natural resin.
Long before the invention of plastics, stainless steel, or Teflon, the resin of a poisonous tree gave people a way to protect their kitchen utensils from decay. The tree is the lacquer tree, native to East Asia, and its poisonous sap hardens into a kind of harmless protective shell. In Asian countries, cooking utensils and furniture were generally fashioned out of bamboo, reeds, and the region's many hardwoods. With a lacquer coating, these household items lasted longer, and resisted the deterioration caused by moisture. These lacquered products had another noticeable feature--they were remarkably beautiful.
The lacquer resin, applied in coats, stains wood with a deep, brownish sheen. Unlike paints, the stain acts as its own protection against the elements, and lacquer-ware objects can last for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Excavations at the Homutu archaeological site in China's Zhejiang Province, for example, unearthed in 1978 a wooden bowl from the Neolithic Age, coated with natural lacquer. The item is considered the earliest lacquer-ware object ever recovered, and its coating, incredibly, remains intact after seven thousand years.
This ancient art is preserved today by a shrinking group of artisans. Eighty-year-old Wang Ching-shuang is one of the few lacquer-art masters in Taiwan. Wang is not only still creating works of art from lacquer but also handing on his skills. Two of his apprentices, Wang Hsien-min and Wang Hsien-chih, have been studying the art since childhood. They are the sons of master Wang, and over time they have learned from their father the exquisite finesse of fine brushwork and how to create motifs of simple elegance. The family has produced both practical lacquer ware and objects of art, and along the way, provided a living link to the ancient art.
Lacquer ware first arrived in Taiwan with Chinese settlers during the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911). As more Chinese settled in Taiwan, the demand for lacquer products grew, and a trade developed between Taiwan and the city of Fuzhou just across the Taiwan Strait. Raw lacquer and coating techniques were eventually introduced to Taiwanese craftsmen by masters from Fuzhou. The popularity of lacquer ware diminished, however, with the arrival of new materials for household goods. But even as its popularity decreased among the Chinese, the Japanese were nursing the tradition. The Japanese had found that lacquered products accentuated the presentation of their cuisine, and they became a celebrated part of Japanese culinary tradition.
During the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), the tradition came full circle. The Japanese in Taiwan were encouraging local craftsmen to produce lacquer ware for export back to Japan. Wang Ching-shuang was one of the few students who received formal training in the art from the Japanese. Wang became a master of the art, experimenting with Japanese styles of lacquer-making. His skills have been recognized over the years through various awards, including the Folk Crafts Award in 1999 presented by the Seventh Worldwide Chinese Cultural and Artistic Heritage Awards. "Wang possesses excellent skills cultivated and refined over a very long period of time," says Ueng Shyu-der, director of the National Taiwan Craft Research Institute (NTCRI). "He's especially skilled at the shih-hui technique, which distinguishes him as a rival to prestigious Japanese artists who practice the same style. To bring about such good quality of work requires devotion and patience, of which we find plenty in Wang."
Shih-hui involves several layering and embossing techniques in which metal powder and lacquer plaster, a mix of natural lacquer with lime, are used to give flat motifs and figures more volume and texture. Of all the techniques used to produce lacquer art--drawing, engraving, embossing, covering, installing, carving, sculpting, polishing, filling, grinding, and so on--shih-hui is considered to be one of the most difficult.
Lacquer, though a simple substance in itself, is a remarkably diverse medium for artists. When creating lacquer paintings, for example, artists may further enrich the texture by spraying, inlaying, and spreading onto the flat surface such materials as eggshells, seashells, gold and silver powders, and mother-of-pearl. "What's amazing about the art is the limitless choices available for the use of materials and techniques," Wang Hsien-chih says.
Lacquer works are generally made by applying beautifying layers of lacquer to an object. But the most difficult technique is the production of bodiless lacquer ware, which can be made by applying lacquer to a linen base to be removed after drying. Bodiless lacquer ware commands higher artistic value and requires a greater degree of skills, according to Wang Hsien-chih.
The types of objects used as the body for the creation of lacquer art are also evolving with time. In addition to using such conventional media as ceramics, wood, and bamboo strips, more people are experimenting with other materials such as ropes, metal, and stone. The older Wang, however, prefers lacquer painting to the creation of lacquer ware. It normally takes Wang one to two years to complete a piece. The first step, sketching from real life, can take several months and often results in scores of drawings detailing minute changes of light and shape. "Such painstaking preparation is crucial to sifting the essence from unwanted distractions to achieve fine and lively composition," Wang explains. "Composition is about the arrangement of space, subjects, and color scheme with simplicity and clarity."
Because of the preciousness of natural lacquer, the process of composition is executed many times on paper before the final version is ink-rubbed onto a wooden plate to avoid the need for modification. Also, a finished lacquer painting is usually accomplished with layers of lacquer, which demand more time to dry than other types of paints. The process of creating lacquer artwork is a slow one, and in his six decades of practicing the craft, Wang has produced about fifty pieces of artwork, including some freestanding objects.
Born in 1922, Wang first set off on his career by studying lacquer art in high school. He eventually became a successful lacquer-ware exporter, and only recently returned to art creation as demand for exports declined. Wang's experiences in many respects represent the rise and fall of the industry in Taiwan. Although the people in Taiwan had been familiar with lacquer ware and furniture, the islanders maintained a production scale too small to popularize the craft. In the 1920s, though, the Japanese colonialists began to develop the industry. Lacquer trees were imported from Vietnam to grow on the island, and a private craft center in Taichung was opened to the public in 1928 and transformed into a private school later in 1936 to train more skilled hands. Wang enrolled in the school in 1937 and continued to develop his skills under the instruction of several nationally reputed Japanese lacquer artists when he later traveled to Japan to attend the Tokyo Fine Arts School, predecessor of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
Wang returned home in 1944, a year before the Japanese withdrawal from Taiwan, and taught the craft at his alma mater until the school was closed in 1947. Wang developed a reputation as a teacher and an artist and won several national prizes during those years. But after the closing of the school, he tried his hand at the commercial aspect of the craft. He first entered a lacquer-ware production company in Hsinchu as a division head. In 1949 when the company was shut down, Wang started his own lacquer-ware factory in Hsinchu. The production lines were later moved to Wang's hometown in Taichung County. During the next few decades, Wang's lacquer-ware business thrived in the overheated export market of the day. Export of lacquer ware to Japan, in particular, soared in the 1970s as the Japanese government implemented forest-conservation policies to prevent over-logging.
To meet the increasing demand for lacquer products, new technologies were developed. Plastic molds began to replace wood and bamboo, and cheaper forms of chemical lacquer were invented. Patterns and motifs were also mass-produced through silkscreen printing. Among the rapid commercialization of the industry, Wang continued his efforts to promote the traditions of the craft in Taiwan. In 1952, for example, he was invited by the Nantou County Government, along with the late artist Yen Shui-lung, to set up various handicraft workshops that would later evolve into the NTCRI.
The NTCRI has been promoting lacquer as a traditional craft and a viable industry for artists in Taiwan since 1984. "The craft has economic potential," Ueng Shyu-der observes. "Lacquer-art furniture is gaining appreciation in the European market. Therefore, we should seek to introduce the craft into furniture design and the making of other household objects." The institute held an exhibition last October as the harvest of its promotional effort showing various handicrafts, including lacquer ware. On display was an award-winning lacquer-art screen by Wang Hsien-min.
In the meantime, the older Wang is dedicating much of his time to developing teaching materials and lecturing at the workshops organized by the NTCRI. He admits, however, that the skill must be learned through practice above all. "What we may hand down is the basic know-how," he says. "The skills of lacquer art are best learned by doing. How far students progress from there depends on their individual talent and effort."
Over the years, quite a few young masters of the craft have graced the field, including the younger Wangs. These days the father and sons no longer rely on the making of practical lacquer ware for a living and focus instead on creating artistic pieces. And the beauty of natural-lacquer products only increases with their use. As Wang Hsien-chih points out, lacquer has a unique quality that has drawn so many artists to the brown resin of the lacquer tree. "The touch of human hands only makes lacquer ware shine more--handling lends them brightness and richness."