Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Over the past nearly 40 years, more than 5,000 pieces of lacquerware have been excavated successively from Chu tombs in the Jingzhou region; among the excavated artifacts, items from over two thousand years ago—such as "offering boxes," "tea trays," and "tea-snack boxes"—are entirely identical to the everyday objects used by local people in the early years of the People's Republic of China.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Jingzhou lies on the Jianghan Plain, along the Jingjiang section of the Yangtze, and since antiquity has been a source of fine timber, raw lacquer, and gold, as well as the cradle of the brilliant Chu culture. The Chu-style lacquer decoration craft matured during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods; for over two thousand years this Jing-Chu traditional craft with its distinctive Eastern cultural character has been transmitted generation to generation in the Jingzhou region, its main categories being mortise-and-tenon lacquered painted woodcarving wares and gilt lacquer basins and trays. Chu-style lacquerware is strange and magnificent in form, rich and varied in ornament, and saturated yet elegant and grave in color. Mortise-and-tenon assembly is one of its great features: the whole object is often composed of separately carved and shaped parts joined by mortise and tenon, giving lively yet sturdy forms. Chu-style lacquerware uses refined raw lacquer, and its colors are drawn from natural mineral and plant pigments. The colored lacquer must pass through multiple process steps including pigment grinding, sun-dehydration, mixing of pigment with transparent lacquer, and sealed storage. Making a single object passes through nearly twenty process steps: material selection, carving, mortise-tenon forming, smoothing, ash-scraping, sanding, ash-clearing, lacquering, painting, and gilding.
Archived Process Record
The colored lacquer must pass through multiple process steps including pigment grinding, sun-dehydration, mixing of pigment with transparent lacquer, and sealed storage.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Chu-style lacquerware in the Jingzhou area carries on the old forms from two thousand years ago: the Jianghan Plain and the Jingjiang section of the Yangtze abound in fine timber, raw lacquer, and gold, and in the past forty years over five thousand pieces of lacquerware have been excavated from Chu tombs. Its categories center on mortise-and-tenon lacquered painted woodcarving wares and gilt lacquer basins and trays; the whole piece is joined from separately carved parts by mortise and tenon, without glue. A single object goes through nearly twenty steps—material selection, carving, mortise-tenon forming, smoothing, ash-scraping, lacquering, painting, and gilding. In 1985 Zou Dexiang replicated the "Woodcarved Animal Screen" for the Jingzhou Museum.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, several inheritors from Chu-style lacquerware craft families in Jingzhou City have not only produced high-fidelity replicas of fine excavated Chu lacquerware but also made scholarly objects such as inkstone boxes and brush holders. Although there are nearly ten lacquerware workshops in the Jingzhou region, only a few Chu-style lacquerware inheritors have relatively mature technique, and because of a lack of funds and skilled workers they can hardly make headway. The advanced age of veteran artisans, the shortage of successors, and the need to establish sound protection mechanisms are the main problems awaiting solution. Zou Dexiang (per the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in October 1948, a native of Jiangling County, Hubei Province. Representative inheritor of the fourth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item "Lacquerware Decoration Craft (Chu-Style Lacquerware Decoration Craft)." In 1961 he studied lacquer decoration craft under Qi Yibai. In 1985, at the invitation of the Jingzhou Museum, he successfully replicated the "Woodcarved Animal Screen" and other Chu-style lacquer-wood objects. His skill is superb, especially in carving and lacquering, and he has distilled the craft's techniques and oral formulas. He has his own original insights into the mortise-tenon structure of objects, the preparation and blending of colored lacquers, and the outlining and painting of decorative patterns. His representative works include the "Snake-Bird Screen," the "Marquis Yi of Zeng Dou (stemmed vessel)," and the "Tiger-Base Bird-Rack Drum"; among them the "Tiger-Base Bird-Rack Drum" won the silver prize at the 2010 inaugural China Intangible Cultural Heritage Exposition held by the Ministry of Culture and is held in the collection of the National Library.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Gan Erke 03-1389
- Chen Sibi 03-1390
- He Junming 04-1891
- Li Bosheng 04-1892
- Zou Dexiang 04-1893
- Li Aizhen 05-2823
- Ding Guokun 05-2824
- Fu Yizhou 05-2825
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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