What comes to mind when you think of lacquer? Pungent taste? Scary formaldehyde? Or is it a product of Western chemistry?
Do you know that China is the first country to skillfully use lacquer, is the birthplace of the world's lacquerware art, and Chinese lacquer culture has a long history.
In 1978, the vermilion lacquered wooden round bowl unearthed in Hemudu Village, Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province, was decorated with vermilion lacquer inside and outside, and although more than 7,000 years later, the color is still bright and brilliant. This is the earliest surviving object of Chinese lacquerware. In addition, the hue of the wooden bowl is saturated and pure, and the membrane surface is bright and crystalline, indicating that the skills of making color paint and painting in the lacquer process at that time have reached a high level. In other words, as early as 7,000 years earlier, the Chinese ancestors had mastered the skills of lacquer making and painting, conservatively estimated, perhaps more than 1,000 years further.
The status of lacquerware at that time was higher than many people imagined. Han Feizi, Ten Passes, written in the Warring States period, records a conversation between Yu Yu and Qin Mugong: "The minister who heard the past Yao has the world; Eat in the earthen and drink in the earth, and the land is as far as the shame in the south, the capital in the north, and the east and west to the place of the sun and the moon. Yao Chan, Yu Shun received it, as a food vessel, cut mountains and trees and wealth, sawed and repaired traces, flowed paint on it, lost to the palace, thought of food vessel, princes thought it was luxurious, and the country was dissatisfied thirteen. Shun Zen is in the world, and passed on to Yu, Yu as a sacrificial vessel, black paint on the outside, and Zhu painting inside, Manxi for Yin, Jiang Xi is quite favorable, and the bottle has decorations, this is extravagant, and the country is not convinced by thirty-three. In this passage, Han Feizi used Yu's dialogue with Qin Mugong to warn Qin Shi Huang not to be arrogant and extravagant, to the effect that Yao used pottery as a living utensil, and his territory stretched from Jiaotoe in the south to Youdu in the north, and east and west to the place where the sun and moon rose and set, and there was no one who did not submit. Yao Chan let the world, Yu Shun accept it, and the eating utensils he made were made by cutting down trees on the mountain, sawing into vessels, trimming traces, painting black paint on them, and sending them to the palace as food utensils. The princes thought it was too extravagant and did not submit to the Fang state, there were thirteen. Yu Shunchan let the world pass on to Xia Yu, the sacrificial vessel made by Xia Yu, black paint on the outside, painted with red lacquer inside, a car mat made of mandarin, a straw mat decorated with twill edges, a cup and spoon with a pattern, and a wine vessel with decoration, which was even more extravagant, and Fang Guo who did not submit had thirty-three.
Using a small black lacquer bowl to eat turned out to be an overly extravagant crime of the emperor, and it was also a great sin to use lacquerware as a sacred vessel for sacrifice, so that as many as thirty-three princes openly expressed their dissatisfaction, and the extravagant status of lacquerware can be seen.
Ancient lacquerware has gone through a long period of more than 3,000 years, and in the Qin and Han dynasties for nearly 500 years, it has achieved a brilliant and splendid lacquerware culture and created a brilliant brilliance that has attracted worldwide attention. In the important origin of shaping Chinese Han culture, Chu Han culture, left a large number of precious lacquerware, if jade carvings and bronze pottery represent the graphic symbol elements of Chu and Han culture, lacquerware shapes the color symbol elements of Chu and Han culture. The basic colors of the thousands of lacquerware unearthed from the Warring States Chu tombs in Changsha are vermilion, white, silk, golden yellow, cyan and other colors. The Chu people are still fire, and vermilion is the main color, so Liu Bangben Chu people, who call themselves "Red Emperors", used red as the main color after the establishment of the Han Dynasty. Most of the lacquerware unearthed from the Han tomb in Xuzhou is Zhu, Jiang and Qing. In particular, the two colors of Zhu and Qing represent the two directions of "south" and "east", and then the two graphics of "dragon" and "phoenix" reflect the Chu and Han culture, and it is also a graphic expression of lacquerware culture, which is no coincidence.
In a sense, lacquerware has achieved the color symbol of Chinese civilization dominated by Han culture, and the Chinese nation's preference and choice of color for thousands of years have originated here, and lacquerware has brightened thousands of years of Chinese culture with thick and distant colors.
After the Tang Dynasty, after the perennial turmoil of the two Jin Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the raw materials were expensive, the craftsmanship was complicated, and the construction period was long, and the lacquerware that was often regarded as a luxury enough to destroy the country was restricted by the imperial court and was not allowed to be produced and used. Chu Suiliang, the attendant of the yellow gate, replied: "Those who are extravagant, the foundation of peril, lacquerware, will be gold and jade, loyal to the prince, will guard against it, if the disaster has been completed, there is no return." "From this conversation, we see that at that time the use of lacquerware had risen to the level of determining the survival of the country. After the Anshi Rebellion, Emperor Tang once again decreed: "In June of the seventh year, the edict is forbidden to bury thinly, and no fake flowers and fruits, flat shed, Baodan and other things." "This ban on flat lacquerware, gold and silver lacquerware, and jewelry-embedded lacquerware dealt a heavy blow to the production of lacquerware, causing the originally prosperous lacquerware manufacturing of the Tang Dynasty to decline rapidly, and the variety of lacquerware was greatly reduced.
At the same time, exquisite and warm porcelain like ice and jade developed rapidly, and was favored and sought after by the court and beyond. In this case, lacquerware craftsmen, unwilling to be abandoned by historical trends, created a lacquerware art known for its red color - carving lacquer. With its deep and calm Chinese red and warm and heavy texture, it has once again been valued by the royal family and has become the royal art hidden deep in Ouchi. Other lacquerware arts have also taken root in Sichuan, Fujian, Shanxi, Yunnan, Jiangxi and other places, and developed silently. Although various lacquerware exist in different forms across China's vast territory, the once glorious lacquerware culture is no longer admired, and its influence is gradually weakening.
From the beginning of the Song Dynasty until the Ming and Qing dynasties, only carved lacquer was the first choice of lacquer art for the court, and it also led to the development of other lacquerware art forms. During the Qianlong period, the Qianlong Emperor, who enjoyed prosperity and peace, once again pushed the lacquerware art led by carved lacquer to a new peak with the unprecedented national strength accumulated by Kangxi and Yongzheng. However, the return to glory did not last long, and after Qianlong, the national strength declined, many precious lacquerware arts shrank or even disappeared, and lacquerware once again appeared a broken generation of craftsmanship.
In addition, since the Tang Dynasty, with the implementation of the "lacquer restriction order" in the people, lacquerware was deeply locked in the Forbidden City with high vermilion walls, and the inheritance and dissemination of lacquerware culture in the people lacked a foundation and could not be continued, so the once prominent lacquerware culture gradually distanced itself from jade culture, porcelain culture, and purple clay culture, and was only passed down from generation to generation by a few people, and lacquerware became a civilization left behind by the Chinese nation. Surprisingly, lacquerware was highly regarded in Japan during the Tang Dynasty, and it was promoted and called itself the "Land of Lacquer Art". Nowadays, the English translation of the name of Japan is lacquerware.