Lacquer is a white resinous sap
from the lac tree, which is cultivated in Central and South China. When
exposed to the air, it turns black.
The lac tree is tapped at about the age of 10 years.
Incisions made in the bark and the running sap collected during the months of
June-Sept. It is strained through hempen cloth to remove physical
impurities, and after being pounded and stirred in shallow wooden tubs, to give
it uniform liquidity, it is slightly heated over a slow fire, stirred to
evaporate excess moisture and stored in airtight vessels.
Lacquer is a slightly irritant poison, but workers in the
industry become inoculated.
Cinnabar is often found near where gold is mined. The red
ore contains mercury. The ore is then pounded into powder. Heat is
used to render the poisonous mercury harmless.
Lacquer and cinnabar are mixed together to form the manmade
lacquer. The making of cinnabar requires 150 steps.
In the case of carved lacquer, the process was very
laborious. There were sometimes as many as 200-300 coats of lacquer built
up on the wooden or metal base, if the piece was to be of first quality, so as
to give depth to the carving. Each layer had to be left to dry, and a fine
large piece might take years to prepare and then years to carve. Ten years
was not considered excessive.
Sometimes layers of different colors were used, and then the
carver had to cut back from the surface to expose each color required by the
design. This was done with a V-shaped knife.
The work necessitated the utmost precision. A slip of a
twentieth of an inch, and the work of years would be ruined, for no correction
was possible.
Enjoy the skill it took to make the cinnabar you see or the
pieces you purchase - they are truly works of art!
*Just another tidbit I learned from an East Indian family that
visited our shop - cinnabar is the pigment used for the red dot the Hindu
followers put between their eyebrows, and East Indian women also put the pigment
down the center part of their hair. Enemies have been known to substitute
the unfiltered poisonous pure cinnabar ore pigment for the safe pigment in order
to murder someone! A sinister use of a beautiful thing.
Above is what can be done with cinnabar - photo donated by our
good friend Gretchen. Not for sale.
