Lacquerware is an important invention of the ancient working people in China in terms of chemical technology and arts and crafts. Lacquerware is durable, shiny and beautiful, and lightweight, not only widely used in daily life, but also in all departments of industry.
In practice, the ancients of Our country used chemical means to create paint painting, clip portraits, "gold and silver flat off", "red removal", "gold" and other paint technologies, which are well-known at home and abroad.
Lacquer liquid is a physiological secretion of the lacquer family woody plant sumac native to China, and the intelligent working people in ancient China artificially use this natural phenomenon to consciously introduce more lacquer liquid from the lacquer tree, brush it on the utensils, and become the original lacquerware.
Ancient ancestors found that the lacquer sap taken from the sumac tree contained some water, and it was stirred in the sun while dehydrated to make a dark viscous fluid. In this way, the raw lacquer becomes a cooked lacquer; and when red pigment is added, it becomes the original color paint.
In addition, the ancient ancestors also recognized the properties of lacquer film and the conditions of film formation, and invented the lacquer technology. For example, in the late Spring and Autumn Period, exquisite several, cases, tricks, drums, go handles, town tomb beasts, etc., have been excavated in kind.
Archaeologists have unearthed black clay pots painted with lacquer paint in the late Neolithic sites in Wujiang, Jiangsu Province; red carved wooden ware marks have also been unearthed in the Anyang Yin Ruins site, which is the oldest surviving lacquerware ornament.
Warring States lacquerware painting includes red, yellow, blue, white, black 5 colors and a variety of complex colors, the pigments used are probably cinnabar, stone yellow, male yellow, female yellow, laterite, white earth and other mineral pigments and plant dyes such as blue indigo.
When making lacquerware in ancient China, dry vegetable oils such as tung oil were often mixed into the paint. In the manufacture of color lacquerware, various patterns are also painted with tung oil and a variety of pigments or dyes. Therefore, the formation of China's unique national style of lacquerware craftsmanship.
Tung oil is a dry vegetable oil with wide application in China. It is squeezed from the seeds of the tung tree and the main ingredient is tung oleic acid. In ancient Times, China recognized the properties of tung oil film formation very early, and combined it with lacquer liquid, which is also an excellent innovation in the history of chemical technology.
In order to prevent corrosion, some wooden buildings and metal objects were later painted with lacquer layers, and many lacquerware were painted with various colorful patterns.
Judging from the technology, some lacquerware in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period were obviously painted with dry oil and oil paints of various colors to paint various delicate patterns. Although the brightness of oil paint is greater than that of paint, it is not as resistant to aging as paint. Paint production is smaller than oil, and the cost is higher than oil.
Filling the paint with dry oil as a thinner can both improve performance and reduce costs. Combine oil and lacquer to make the best use of things. This is still the case in modern times.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, paint technology entered a new stage of development. The Western Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian's "Chronicle of History and Funny Columns" has a record of the "yin room". The shade room is a special special room when making paint, because the lacquer phenol is easy to polymerize into a film in a wet environment, and it is not easy to crack after drying, and the setting of the shade room is to provide conditions for this.
Lacquerware unearthed in the Han Dynasty include spoons, plates, cases, boxes, ear cups, pillows, coffins, etc. The inner tubes are mostly wood and hemp, and the hemp tires are called "clips". Lacquerware is also decorated with gold, silver and copper hoops, called "claspers", which is a luxury. One lacquered cup is equal to 10 copper cups, and gold and silver buckles are naturally more valuable than this.
During the Han Dynasty, in Shu County and Guanghan County, Sichuan, where lacquerware was mainly produced, the rich families competed to use lacquerware. This type of gold and silver clasper also appears in excavated utensils, and the "yellow coater" in the lacquer inscription may be related to the type of work that made such lacquerware.
From the excavated Han Dynasty chronological lacquerware, it can be examined that its production age, location and craftsman name, but also reflects the rather complicated division of labor in the lacquer workshop, which provides valuable information for understanding the operation process of paint technology at that time.
In the official lacquerware workshops of the Han Dynasty, there were Qin workers and shanggong who made inner tubes, that is, lacquer workers, yellow painters who gilded gold on copper accessories, painters who depicted oil paint patterns, engraved inscriptions, qing workers who finally repaired, and craftsmen who managed to be comprehensive. Among the officials were the history of nursing workers, the history of the guards, the cheng, the rafters, and the history of ling.
In addition to official workers, the operation of private lacquer workers is also quite developed. At that time, the folk proverb had "a hundred trees in the family, and the first life is forever".
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Two Jin Dynasties, ancient lacquer workers also invented the use of clips to create statues. First borrow the wooden bone mud mold to shape the bottom tire, and then paste several layers of linen cloth on the outside, the cloth tire is painted and painted, and after drying, remove the mud mold, it becomes a hollow lacquer statue, also known as "birth".
At that time, it was already possible to create a giant statue of eight feet tall, which was a major achievement of the ancient paint process.
Jia Sixun also has a special discussion on lacquerware in his "Qi Min Zhi Shu", especially describing the protection method of extending the durability of the lacquer film, pointing out that the lacquerware is prone to mildew when it is wet, and it must be "exposed to dryness" in the mid-summer rainy season and sterilized by using solar ultraviolet rays.
It was also mentioned that cinnabar is lipophilic and weather-resistant. These incisive opinions are summed up on the basis of long-term practice.
In the Tang Dynasty, on the basis of the two Han Gold and Silver Buckles, it developed into "Gold and Silver Flat". It is to carve the gold and silver flakes into a pattern glue glued to the paint tire, and after painting, it is polished and pushed to reveal a sparkling honeysuckle pattern, and the paint surface is flat on the instrument table, which is very elaborate.
The Tang Dynasty also created the "red removal" technology, coating the vermilion paint layer by layer on the wooden or metal tire, and each lacquer was used to remove the shades of the pattern with a knife, showing a three-dimensional image. At the same time, the snails decorated with mussel shells and jade on the paint surface are also quite developed.
In order to summarize the experience of lacquer workers in the past generations, Zhu Zundu, a bibliophile of the five generations, wrote the book "Lacquer Classic", which is the earliest lacquer monograph. Unfortunately, such an important book has not been handed down.
In the Tang Dynasty, red was very popular in the Song and Yuan dynasties, also known as "carved red", and the bottom tire was made of precious metal. Similar artifacts are still passed down today, and indeed they are worthy of the name. There is also a kind of lacquerware called "rhinoceros skin", which is also made in the Song Dynasty, which is painted with vermilion black and yellow tri-color paint, which is very similar to rhino skin.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the carving red made by Zhang Cheng and Yang Mao in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, was the most famous, and the carving method was round. Jiaxing Peng Junbao is also known as "Gold".
The so-called gold is a kind of paint filling, which is first engraved with a pattern on the paint floor, and then filled with gold powder, and then polished into a vessel. Compared with gold and silver, it is unique.
The screw is also a high-grade lacquerware for the Rich House to enjoy in the Yuan Dynasty, and in addition to the mussel shell, it is also decorated with jewelry and jade of various colors, forming a beautiful picture.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, paint technology continued to develop. In the early Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu Period, a lacquer garden and a tong garden were set up in Nanjing, planting tens of millions of lacquer and tong trees to show their advocacy. During the Yongle years, an official bureau was set up in the Beijing Orchard Factory to manufacture carved lacquer, which was operated by Zhang Degang, the son of Zhang Cheng, a famous lacquer painter in the Yuan Dynasty, and used wood and tin as tires for the royal court. The red and paint filling during the Yide years are particularly beautiful.
During the Longqing period, the works of Huang Cheng, a folk red-picking artist in Xin'an, can be compared with the products of the official bureau orchard factory.
Huang Cheng also wrote the book "Records of The Ornaments". The book is divided into two sets: Qianji talks about the raw materials, tools, and methods of lacquerware manufacturing, and lists the problems and causes that may occur in various lacquerware; Kunji describes the classification of lacquerware and dozens of decorative techniques of various lacquerware.
This is a complete and summative lacquer monograph in existence, which provides a reliable basis for the naming and classification of ancient lacquerware.
Since the Qing Dynasty, the technology of the previous generation has been basically inherited. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang years, Yangzhou lacquer worker Lu Kuisheng and his works are representative, and the mosaics, carvings, statues and so on have been handed down to the world. Later, paint technology did not develop well, and some techniques were lost.
China's lacquerware and lacquer technology has long been transmitted to foreign countries. East Asian countries such as Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Myanmar, India; Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, as well as Central Asia and West Asia, all imported lacquerware and paint technology from China in the Han, Tang and Song Dynasties very early ago, and organized lacquerware production, constituting a unique handicraft industry in Asian countries.
After the discovery of the new shipping route, China's lacquerware spread west to some European countries.
Knowledge
In 1421, the Ming Yongle Emperor Zhu Dili moved the capital to Beijing. Immediately after the capital was established, it was ordered to recruit craftsmen from all over the country to fill the inner province.
Out of the importance of carving lacquer, the Yongle Emperor also personally interviewed the skill level of lacquerware craftsmen. He heard that Zhang Cheng and Yang Mao, famous painters of the Yuan Dynasty, were good at carving lacquer, and ordered the two to enter Beijing, when the two were deceased, and Zhang Cheng's son Zhang Degang inherited his father's business to enter Beijing for his father. The Yongle Emperor inspected in person and was very satisfied, so he appointed him as the deputy technical commander of yingjiao to manage the carving and lacquer production of the orchard factory.
From here, we can see the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di's love for carving lacquer. And the carved lacquer made by Yongle Dynasty will be posthumous.