Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Tang-dynasty poet Bai Juyi wrote in his "Song of the Plain Screen": "Do you not see the grand mansions and royal palaces of today, with woven screens and silver panels, studded with pearls and inlaid with mother-of-pearl and mica, where the five metals and seven treasures gleam with delicate grace." According to the "Jishan County Annals": "The Jishan Museum collects more than thirty pieces of craftworks from various dynasties, mostly made in the Ming and Qing, among which the Qing-dynasty mother-of-pearl-inlaid bottle is representative"; the county cultural-relics protection center holds a "Qing-dynasty mother-of-pearl-inlaid wooden square ewer with figure-and-flower ornament."
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Jishan mother-of-pearl lacquerware decoration craft is a traditional lacquerware decoration craft using natural raw lacquer, mother-of-pearl (soft and hard), gold, silver, wood, paper, and other materials, comprising more than ten production steps, and is mainly distributed in Jishan County, Shanxi Province, and its surrounding townships. The types of Jishan mother-of-pearl lacquerware include naturally-lacquered body with inlaid mother-of-pearl imitating porcelain forms (soft and hard mother-of-pearl), wooden-bodied and paper-bodied raw-lacquer inlaid mother-of-pearl products, and mixed products of raw-lacquer inlaid mother-of-pearl with metal calligraphy. The materials used in the Jishan mother-of-pearl lacquerware decoration craft are mainly natural raw lacquer, mother-of-pearl (of two kinds, hard and soft, drawn from the pearl-oyster and clam shells of inland lakes), gold and silver, wood, and paper. The main processes are body-form design, body making, body ash-preparation, body polishing, pattern design, pattern drawing and carving, body lacquering, mother-of-pearl inlay, repeated lacquering, in-water polishing, pattern tapping-carving, and hand polishing. The making process is elaborate, delicate, and exacting; it involves lacquering more than ten times, each followed by shade-drying at a set temperature and humidity, then polishing in water with wet sandpaper, so the production cycle is long. Jishan County in southwestern Shanxi is rich in lacquer-tree resources; the mother-of-pearl inlay craft has been popular since the Western Zhou period, and over a millennium the technique reached perfection and was presented as tribute in every dynasty. Mother-of-pearl objects are refined and exquisite, yet regrettably there are few historical documents recording the craft, with only artifacts as evidence. Jishan mother-of-pearl lacquerware has an antique, elegant exterior, a bright, smooth, and lustrous lacquer surface, and fresh, refined patterns that embody the character of Shanxi folk traditional culture; fused with Chinese history, culture, and art, as a form of lacquering craft it inherits and disseminates the traditional handmade mother-of-pearl lacquerware technique, is an important text for studying ancient and modern mother-of-pearl methods, and is a treasure of China's lacquer culture.
Archived Process Record
The Jishan mother-of-pearl lacquerware decoration craft is a traditional lacquerware decoration craft using natural raw lacquer, mother-of-pearl (soft and hard), gold, silver, wood, paper, and other materials, comprising more than ten production steps, and is mainly distributed in Jishan County, Shanxi Province, and its surrounding townships.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Jishan mother-of-pearl is bound up with the local lacquer-tree resources; the natural raw lacquer for lacquering comes from the hills of the southwest, and the mother-of-pearl is taken from the pearl-oyster shells of inland lakes, in soft and hard varieties. There are some ten-odd process steps, from body-form design, ash-body preparation, drawing and carving, and mother-of-pearl inlay, to repeated lacquering, in-water polishing, tapping-carving, and hand polishing; each lacquering is followed by shade-drying at fixed temperature and humidity, more than ten times in all, so the cycle is extremely long. Soft mother-of-pearl is thin and suits curved vessels; hard mother-of-pearl is thick and suits square, hard bodies.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The craft is transmitted through oral instruction and personal demonstration; in recent years the older generation of artisans has aged, and there is urgent need to strengthen protection and transmission. Li Aizhen (per the official archives of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in July 1957, a native of Jishan County, Shanxi Province. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item "Lacquerware Decoration Craft (Jishan Mother-of-Pearl Lacquerware Decoration Craft)." Senior industrial-art craftsman. Born into a peasant family, at twenty she entered the mother-of-pearl workshop of the Jishan Arts and Crafts Factory as an apprentice, learning the mother-of-pearl lacquerware craft under Wang Manshui and Hou Xinnian. Over more than forty years of practice she overcame the difficulty that whole mother-of-pearl sheets could not bend over curved vessels, innovatively produced Song-style Ge-glaze patterns, developed a purely hand-kneaded, single-formed, seamless whole raw-lacquer body, and created works such as raw-lacquer inlaid metal calligraphy, continuously enriching and refining the lacquerware decoration techniques. Her works are held in some provincial-level art museums and widely praised by her peers. She founded the Jishan Mother-of-Pearl Lacquerware Research Center and, in cooperation with the Jishan County Vocational Middle School, opened a mother-of-pearl lacquerware training class, cultivating many successor talents for the craft.
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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