Urushi: All You Need to Know About Japanese Lacquer

by Anne Walther & Diccon Sandrey | CRAFT

© Mobilia Gallery, Mahogany Cabinet by Yoko Zeltersman-Miyaji

Japanese lacquer, or urushi, is a transformative and highly prized material that has been refined for over 7000 years.

Cherished for its infinite versatility, urushi is a distinctive art form that has spread across all facets of Japanese culture from the tea ceremony to modern abstract sculpture.

Above all, no discussion of Japanese crafts can be complete without understanding some of the ingenious techniques behind artistic objects such as lacquer tableware, furniture and even jewelry.

Read on to discover the history and limitless possibilities of Japanese lacquer!

1. Where Does Japanese Lacquer Come From?

© Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, Japanese Lacquer Bowls

Decorated lacquerware is a process that originated in China, more than 3000 years ago and later spread throughout East and Southeast Asia. The spread of Buddhism from the ninth century inspired the production of a large number of decorative lacquered objects for temples and for the privileged classes.

In Japan, lacquer (raw sap) originally had a functional use as a varnish. Maki-e, the association of lacquer with decorative elements typical of Japanese art, came much later, and its date is uncertain.

Sake bottle, 18th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Japanese artists created their own style and perfected the art of decorated lacquerware during the 8th century. Japanese lacquer skills reached its peak as early as the twelfth century, at the end of the Heian period (794-1185). This skill was passed on from father to son and from master to apprentice.

Some provinces of Japan were famous for their contribution to this art: the province of Edo (later Tokyo), for example, produced the most beautiful lacquered pieces from the 17th to the 18th centuries. Lords and shoguns privately employed lacquerers to produce ceremonial and decorative objects for their homes and palaces.

2. Japanese Lacquerware in Europe

© RMN / Grand Palais Art Resource, NY, Dog-shaped Box on a Low Table, late 17th - mid 18th century. Musée national des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. Picture by Thierry Ollivier.

Japanese lacquer objects were also exported and admired by European courts, especially in France, where the French term japonner (“to japan”) meant to lacquer or to varnish. Most of the pieces imported from Japan and China via India were adapted to Western customs and tastes.

Japanese lacquer art was one of the most popular items exported to Europe by Portuguese traders from Nagasaki from the 16th century.

© RMN / Grand Palais Art Resource, NY Book-shaped Box, late 17th - mid 18th century. Musée national des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. Picture by Thierry Ollivier.

Two centuries later, Queen Marie-Antoinette built up a remarkable collection of lacquerware and in 1781, in her gilded cabinet in Versailles, had a "lacquer cage" fitted out by the cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener to house her precious Japanese lacquers.

Although the lacquerware market never experienced decay in Japan, a slow decline in exports began at the end of the eighteenth century and during the nineteenth century in Europe. The World Fairs of 1889 and 1900 and the Art Nouveau period revived Japan's taste and demand for lacquered objects, whose delicate patterns were in perfect harmony with the vegetal style then in vogue.

3. What is Urushi Lacquer?

© Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, Japanese Varnish Tree

The varnish used in Japanese lacquer is made from the sap of the urushi tree, also known as the lacquer tree or the Japanese varnish tree (Rhus vernacifera), which mainly grows in Japan and China, as well as Southeast Asia. Japanese lacquer, 漆 urushi, is made from the sap of the lacquer tree. The tree must be tapped carefully, as in its raw form the liquid is poisonous to the touch, and even breathing in the fumes can be dangerous. But people in Japan have been working with this material for many millennia, so there has been time to refine the technique!

Flowing from incisions made in the bark, the sap, or raw lacquer is a viscous greyish-white juice. The harvesting of the resin can only be done in very small quantities.

© Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, Raw sap from the urushi tree, — © Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, Raw sap from the *urushi* tree,

Three to five years after being harvested, the resin is treated to make an extremely resistant, honey-textured lacquer. After filtering, homogenization and dehydration, the sap becomes transparent and can be tinted in black, red, yellow, green or brown.

Once applied on an object, lacquer is dried under very precise conditions: a temperature between 25 and 30°C and a humidity level between 75 and 80%. Its harvesting and highly technical processing make urushi an expensive raw material applied in exceptionally fine successive layers, on objects such as bowls or boxes.

After heating and filtering, urushi can be applied directly to a solid, usually wooden, base. Pure urushi dries into a transparent film, while the more familiar black and red colors are created by adding minerals to the material. Each layer is left to dry and polished before the next layer is added. This process can be very time-consuming and labor-intensive, which contributes to the desirability, and high costs, of traditionally made lacquer goods. When considering the uses of Japanese lacquer, perhaps the most classic example is the lacquerware bowl. Urushi is ideally suited to such items, producing lightweight, watertight, and of course beautiful tableware.

The skills and techniques of Japanese lacquer have been passed down through the generations for many centuries. For four hundred years, the master artisans of Zohiko’s Kyoto workshop have provided refined lacquer articles for the imperial household and discriminating buyers throughout the world. Today you can purchase their wares yourself from their stores in Kyoto or Tokyo.

This lacquered bowl is presented for the new year, with the sprig of evergreen pine representing new growth.

Take a look at some similar treasures among these 6 Extraordinary Works of Japanese Lacquer You Should See!

© Ippodo Gallery, lacquer water pitcher by Jihei Muras

Many creative opportunites are provided by the layering of different colors of lacquer. The style known as Negoro, after the Buddhist monastery where it was developed, was used to create this classic water pitcher. This technique involves successive coats of lacquer of different thicknesses in two colors. With use and time the rich red top layer starts to wear, exposing the deep black underneath.

This wonderful example is the work of Jihei Murase, whose family have honed their lacquerware skills for three generations. Take a look at the Ippodo Gallery for further examples to purchase.

4. What is Maki-e? The Japanese Art of Gold Sprinkling

© Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, Maki-e artisan sprinkling gold powder — © Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, *Maki-e* artisan sprinkling gold powder

Some of the finer pieces of decorative lacquer art are made possible through the process of maki-e (蒔絵). This thousand year old technique that consists of sprinkling the lacquer with fine particles of gold and silver, inlaying mother-of-pearl (raden) or tin and spraying gold, silver, or copper flakes onto the still wet lacquer. The resulting designs are set into place with further layers of polished transparent lacquer.

The gold dust is applied using bamboo tubes and small brushes made from rat’s hair, in order to trace extremely fine lines. This 1500-year-old art calls for extreme expertise and only a few urushi masters still exercise it today.

© Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, Maki-e craftsman painting a bowl — © Wajima Museum of Urushi Art, *Maki-e* craftsman painting a bowl

The fascination of Japanese lacquerware artists for the themes offered by nature (fauna, flora, natural sites, seasons, stars) is equalled only by their talent to magnify them in a poetic, pure and incredibly refined style. Each plant, mountain, animal, or star has a meaning.

© Onishi Gallery, lacquer tea caddy by Kazumi Murose

The golden leaves on this tea caddy are fantastic examples of the technique. To obtain this perfect gradation and shading requires keen skills and a wealth of experience. Master craftsman Kazumi Murose has both. Now considered a living national treasure in Japan, Murose is dedicated to the promotion and practice of traditional lacquerware skills. This flawless piece is available from the Onishi Gallery.

5. Decorated Lacquer Cases: Inlay and Inro

Lacquer Inro with Sealife Design, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (mfa.org)

Before the adoption of western clothing in the 19th century, Japan had to find a way to deal with the acute shortage of pockets! The solution was the inro, a multi-layered cased, that hang off a belt. While Edo period law dictated that clothes should remain quite plain, the inro escaped legal regulation. Consequently they were often highly decorative objects, with light-weight water-proof urushi as the ideal material.

6. Traditional Maki-e Lacquer Designs

Lacquer inro with chrysanthemums, 1800-1850, British Museum — Lacquer *inro* with chrysanthemums, 1800-1850, British Museum

Made of black lacquer with maki-e, a colored shell inlay and gold foil, this inro decorated with two-tone chrysanthemums was manufactured in Somada style. Active during the Edo period, the Somada school produced high quality lacquer objects.

The plum, together with the orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum, considered by the ancient Chinese as the Four Noble plants, each with its valued characteristic, such as purity (orchid), uprightness (bamboo), and humility (chrysanthemum). Such patterns are often found on lacquered objects.

In Chinese art, the Four Noble Ones, also called the Four Gentlemen, have been used in Chinese painting since the time of the Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279) because of their refined beauty, and were later adopted elsewhere in East Asia by artists in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

As they represent the four different seasons (the plum blossom for winter, the orchid for spring, the bamboo for summer, and the chrysanthemum for autumn), the Four Noble Ones are used to depict the unfolding of the seasons through the year.

Tea container (Natsume) with phoenix, 19th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Tea container (*Natsume*) with phoenix, 19th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The five basic elements of the universe according to the ancient philosophy of Japanese natural science are linked to five legendary creatures: the dragon with a blue horn, the phoenix, the qilin in the moonlight, the crouching tiger and the genbu (a blend of snake and tortoise) respectively evoke wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

These five deities, protectors of Japan, were gods in ancient China. They were then adopted by the traditional Japanese esoteric cosmology, a mixture of natural science and occultism. Based on the Chinese philosophies of Wu Xing (five elements) and Yin and Yang, the study of the origin and nature of the universe was introduced in Japan in the beginning of the sixth century.

7. Modern Design: Lacquer Furniture

There are endless possibilities for the use and decoration of lacquer. Kyoto-born Yoko Zeltersman-Miyaji takes advantage of this flexibility to create her unique furniture.

She designs and makes the forms herself, using nail-free traditional wood-working techniques, before bringing to bear her command of urushi for the finishing touches.

This mahogany cabinet, is inlayed with egg shell and mother of pearl. The fine finished is achieved through a technique known as kawari nuri, which involves carefully combining layers of textured lacquer before polishing to the perfectly smooth surface you see here.

© Mobilia Gallery, Interior of Mahogany Cabinet by Yoko Zeltersman-Miyaji

This and other furniture by Miyaji are available from the Mobilia Gallery. You can find out more about Miyaji’s work from her website.

8. Avant-Garde Urushi: Lacquer Sculpture

© Gallery Sokyo, Lacquer sculpture by Chie Aoki

Artist Chie Aoki has found a more unusual use for urushi: to create lacquer sculptures that express feelings on human existence that I’m sure we can all relate to sometimes!

The process begins with carving the legs and feet of her sculptures, modeled on her own, from a large styrofoam block. Then begins the painstaking process of layering the thick black lacquer. Small lacquer bowls can take many weeks to produce, so imagine the effort needed to produce a piece of this size. As Aoki herself says, most of lacquerwork is polishing! If your Japanese is up to it, visit Aoki’s blog to find out more about this fascinating process.

9. Contemporary Craftsmanship: Japanese Lacquer Jewelry

The creative possibilities of maki-e have inspired artisans from many disciplines, including artists such as Mariko Kobayakawa.

Kobayakawa is master of many of Kanazawa’s local crafts, in particular maki-e, which she uses to decorate this artfully constructed piece. This intricate necklace resembles a constellation of planets: you could stare at it for hours! If you’re visiting Kanazawa, you should check out her work at the Higashiyama Edge store.

This 18th century piece from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, used a variety of materials to create this aquatic design, including gold, silver, shell, horn and stone. The inlays were delicately placed onto the wet black urushi, before being sealed in with further layers of transparent lacquer.

If you would like to enjoy some lacquer yourself in person, take a look at this beautiful cherry-blossom design lacquer box, made in Japan, and available on Amazon. Perfect for bringing a little of Japan into your home!

Have you had a chance to see lacquer being made? Do you have any lacquer objects in your home? Let us know in the comments below!

June 5, 2020 | Craft, Lacquer

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