Gao Guangyou
01 · Lineage & Regional School
Gao Guangyou, Male, Yi, from Dafang, Guizhou, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-128). The tradition is documented in Dafang, Guizhou. Within the regional tradition and school record of Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship in Dafang, Guizhou: Dafang County's protection unit is the Dafang County Cultural Heritage Protection Center. Local Yi lacquerware production proceeds from the raw-material conditions of northwest Guizhou and the living needs of Yi-inhabited villages; steps such as material selection, drying, blank forming, ash filling, and decoration are mostly completed in farmers' slack seasons, and craftsmen often combine farming with vessel making; compared with Yiluo Village of Xide, where transmission is through nineteen family generations, the Dafang practice is closer to oral transmission among villages, hard to map one-to-one onto specific family lineages. In terms of vessel types, the Yi people of northwest Guizhou daily use mostly practical wares such as wine bowls, dining plates, and crucibles—finely worked, varied in form, non-toxic and odorless, acid- and high-temperature-resistant and non-deforming; precisely for this reason, lacquerware there is not a substitute for ritual vessels but a household article that has long coexisted with food and drink life. The Yi lacquerware of Dafang County belongs, together with that of the Sichuan-Yunnan area, to the lacquerware tradition of Yi-inhabited regions; its origins can be traced back to the Yi ancestors' practice of lacquering wooden vessel surfaces to prevent insect damage. The transition from plain to painted lacquer went through a considerable period of accumulation: the method of using black lacquer as a ground and then painting patterns with pigments such as cinnabar and orpiment was gradually fixed by Yi communities everywhere through long use. Inferring backward from the seasonal festivals and wedding-funeral customs of the northwest Guizhou area, lacquerware was at first mostly for storage and cooking vessels, and only later became vessel types serving both sacrificial and wedding display and daily dining; the patterns grew from simple to complex, related to the Yi traditional preference for the colors black and red—a color-choice judgment that also holds for Yi lacquerware in southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan.
02 · Mastery & Signature Works
The bearer record for Gao Guangyou is anchored in the documented technical standards of Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship in Dafang, Guizhou. Within the documented technical tradition of Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship in Dafang, Guizhou: Xide County, the 'home of Yi lacquerware,' lies in the north-central part of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, where lacquerware making has a history of more than 1,700 years. From making the crude wooden household utensils of ancient times, to lacquering daily articles with black lacquer, and then to using natural raw materials such as raw lacquer, cinnabar, and orpiment to make exquisite painted lacquerware, the Yi lacquerware decoration craft has continuously developed and improved through its long evolutionary history. Yi lacquerware selects high-quality azalea wood, rosewood, camphor wood, and the like as raw materials, and involves more than forty process steps—selective felling of logs, drying, blank forming, sanding, ash filling, water polishing, grounding, decoration, cleaning, and shade drying. Decoration generally uses black lacquer as the ground color, over which yellow and red patterns are added to form various designs; the strong color contrast displays a distinctive ethnic style. The Yi lacquerware decoration craft of Xide County, Liangshan, has many advantages: the lacquerware it produces is finely worked, varied in form, and elegant; it is non-toxic, odorless, resistant to acid and alkali, high-temperature resistant, and non-deforming. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Documented Process Record": Yi lacquerware selects high-quality azalea wood, rosewood, camphor wood, and the like as raw materials, and involves more than forty process steps—selective felling of logs, drying, blank forming, sanding, ash filling, water polishing, grounding, decoration, cleaning, and shade drying.
Documented Process Record
Yi lacquerware selects high-quality azalea wood, rosewood, camphor wood, and the like as raw materials, and involves more than forty process steps—selective felling of logs, drying, blank forming, sanding, ash filling, water polishing, grounding, decoration, cleaning, and shade drying.
Core Technique I
Xide County, the 'home of Yi lacquerware,' lies in the north-central part of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, where lacquerware making has a history of more than 1,700 years.
Core Technique II
From making the crude wooden household utensils of ancient times, to lacquering daily articles with black lacquer, and then to using natural raw materials such as raw lacquer, cinnabar, and orpiment to make exquisite painted lacquerware, the Yi lacquerware decoration craft has continuously developed and improved through its long evolutionary history.
Core Technique III
Yi lacquerware selects high-quality azalea wood, rosewood, camphor wood, and the like as raw materials, and involves more than forty process steps—selective felling of logs, drying, blank forming, sanding, ash filling, water polishing, grounding, decoration, cleaning, and shade drying.
03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status
In 2025, Gao Guangyou was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship, with Dafang, Guizhou as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship in Dafang, Guizhou: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Dafang, Guizhou as its declared area, and Dafang County Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Center as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.
04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier
Historical origin
The Yi lacquerware of Dafang County belongs, together with that of the Sichuan-Yunnan area, to the lacquerware tradition of Yi-inhabited regions; its origins can be traced back to the Yi ancestors' practice of lacquering wooden vessel surfaces to prevent insect damage. The transition from plain to painted lacquer went through a considerable period of accumulation: the method of using black lacquer as a ground and then painting patterns with pigments such as cinnabar and orpiment was gradually fixed by Yi communities everywhere through long use. Inferring backward from the seasonal festivals and wedding-funeral customs of the northwest Guizhou area, lacquerware was at first mostly for storage and cooking vessels, and only later became vessel types serving both sacrificial and wedding display and daily dining; the patterns grew from simple to complex, related to the Yi traditional preference for the colors black and red—a color-choice judgment that also holds for Yi lacquerware in southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan.
05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage
National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.
| Bearer | Declared area | Roster code | Relation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jiwuwuqie | Xide, Sichuan | 03-1391 | Other regional school |
| Gao Guangyou | Dafang, Guizhou | — | This page |
06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records and the associated project dossier, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。