Pingyaotuiguangqiqi Lacquer Decoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Pingyao polished lacquerware lacquering and decoration technique originated in Pingyao County in central Shanxi and spread to a wide area of northern China. Lacquerware made with this technique was already widely renowned as early as the Kaiyuan era of the Tang dynasty; during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with the rise of the Shanxi merchants, polished lacquerware made considerable progress. In 1989, Pingyao polished lacquerware won the national Golden Cup Award.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Pingyao Polished Lacquerware Factory was established; veteran artists Qiao Quanyu, Ren Maolin and others performed and taught apprentices, bringing polished lacquerware production into a golden age. Pingyao polished lacquerware thereby became one of China's famous lacquerware varieties, its products were exported to more than thirty countries, and some of its finest pieces were collected by the Great Hall of the People and the National Art Museum of China. The Pingyao polished lacquer technique is a consummate, complete set of techniques; its production process mainly includes the following steps: (1) refining raw lacquer with special formulas, techniques and facilities; (2) refining finishing lacquer from raw lacquer and natural tung oil; (3) covering the wooden body with hemp and hanging ash putty — raw-lacquer ash must be backed with cloth, pig's-blood ash must be covered with hemp, and loess glue requires backing with paper; (4) fashioning the hair-tipped lacquering tools from human hair and ox tails; (5) drying the lacquerware in the shade in a specially built drying room; (6) gold-outline painting and color painting, including such traditional techniques as flat gold on a black ground, raised-drum finishing lacquer, gold tracing, gold covering and eggshell inlay; (7) polishing successively with sandpaper, charcoal, hair, brick ash and sesame oil until the lacquerware gleams like a mirror; and (8) decorating with inlay, carving, gold covering, ash engraving and other techniques. The polished lacquer technique is also widely used for the furnishing and decoration of palaces, temples, halls and scholars' studies, achieving excellent artistic effects. Pingyao polished lacquer artists still alive today include Xue Shengjin, a master of Chinese industrial arts, and his disciples Geng Baoguo, Jia Xinglin and others. Due to the impact of modern chemical lacquer and cashew lacquer, the polished lacquer technique, which uses natural lacquer as its raw material, is shrinking day by day, leading artists to change trades and drift away; product quality has declined somewhat, and the technique is in an endangered state.
The burnishing
Burnishing with a linen charged with refined lacquer polishes the surface to a mirror, and gives the craft its name.
A divided craft
From body-making and cloth backing to lacquering, colour and burnishing, each stage a separate hand and a large piece half a year in the making.
Works in national collections
Its pieces now sell in more than thirty countries, and some are held by the Great Hall of the People and the National Art Museum.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Pingyao polished lacquerware lacquering and decoration technique centers on Pingyao County, Shanxi Province; the lacquerware workshops of the Jinzhong and Jinnan areas are mostly connected with it. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Pingyao Polished Lacquerware Factory was established, and veteran artists Qiao Quanyu, Ren Maolin and others performed and taught apprentices, bringing polished lacquerware production into a golden age. The Pingyao County Culture and Tourism Development Center is the project's protecting unit, and products are exported to more than thirty countries.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Pingyao polished lacquer products divide into two great categories: practical articles (such as lacquer cabinets, lacquer chests, long tables and tea tables) and decorative pieces (such as screens and lacquer paintings); they have very high practical and craft value and are welcomed by the broad masses. Pingyao County has now established the Xue Shengjin Workshop and the Lacquer Art Garden, will collate and archive the materials of this technique, build the Pingyao Lacquerware Art Museum, and hold lacquer art training courses, so as to ensure the transmission and development of this precious technique. Xue Shengjin (record from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in August 1937, from Pingyao County, Shanxi Province. Representative inheritor of the Pingyao polished lacquerware lacquering and decoration technique, a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Polished lacquerware lacquering and decoration technician of Pingyao; senior industrial artist. In his fifty years of practice, building on the inheritance of tradition, he boldly innovated: he successfully researched and restored the long-lost pushed-drum finishing lacquer technique, and successively created the three-gold-and-three-color, three-color gold, raised-drum painted decoration, blue-and-green golden landscape, gold-dripping, silver-dripping and shell-dripping techniques of Pingyao lacquerware. The lacquer paintings he created — "Jade Palace and Towers", "Morning Light on Mount Tai" and "Jade Palace and Towers" — and the screens "First Dawn over the Jade Mountain", "Myriad Mountains and Towers in Dawn Colors" and "Spring Garden Presenting Its Green" are dignified yet fluent, and rank among the finest examples of Pingyao polished lacquerware. He consistently advocated mutual exchange of skills between master and apprentice, with teaching and learning reinforcing each other. He practiced what he advocated and taught by word and example, and has trained more than one hundred talented people of all kinds. Liang Zhongxiu (record from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1955, from Pingyao County, Shanxi Province. Representative inheritor of the Pingyao polished lacquer lacquering and decoration technique, a fourth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Senior industrial artist; master of Chinese industrial arts. At eighteen he entered the painting workshop of the Pingyao Polished Lacquerware Factory, where he studied and practiced basic skills systematically under the master Xue Shengjin, and devoted himself to researching the two core techniques of gold-outline painting and raised-drum finishing lacquer. In lacquerware painting he did not stick rigidly to old methods; he boldly and organically integrated the expressive techniques and personal style of oil painting, gouache and watercolor into lacquerware art, both bringing the lacquering and decoration techniques of gold-outline painting and raised-drum finishing lacquer into full play and creating the new gold-dripping, silver-dripping and shell-dripping techniques. Works such as "Yueyang Tower" and "Ode to the Land" have won repeated awards at industrial art exhibitions. Beginning in the 1980s he took on apprentices and taught the craft; his disciples now number more than one hundred, and he concurrently serves as a visiting professor at several universities and an instructor at lacquer art training courses.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xue Shengjin 03-1324
- Liang Zhongxiu 04-1849
- Xue Xiaodong
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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