CHAPTER VII
LACQUER
The most wonderful of all Japanese arts is their lacquer-work, and, perhaps, in this more completely than in any other medium does the peculiar genius of Japan find expression. For the combination of qualities required for the production of a piece of fine lacquer are such as could have been found in no other people. And it comes to us with a shock of surprise that this work, so free and spontaneous and yet so delicate, is wrought in, perhaps, the most difficult and intractable material ever used by man, and built up slowly and by infinitesimal stages, layer by layer, through weeks and months of labour.
Even were the same brilliant faculty of design the gift of the European, the amazing and unfaltering precision of hand, and the limitless patience and unceasing care required by the technical processes, place lacquer-work far beyond his scope. It is only the Eastern who can combine the imagination of the artist with the technical powers and steady perseverance of the ant or the bee. For, indeed, in examining one of these marvellous Japanese works, so full of exquisite detail, so perfect in every part, one is irresistibly reminded of the honeycombs which form the monument of the humble insect worker; but where the one is the repetition of a single design fixed unalterably the other is free and spontaneous, the product of an ever-varying fancy.
It is difficult to imagine anything more perfect than a piece of really fine lacquer—the smooth, translucent surface pleasant even to the sense of touch; the design simple and slight, and sensitively placed so as to cause the blank spaces to form essential parts of the composition; and the whole glowing with soft gold of varying tints, or, perhaps, relieved with a boldly inlaid piece of mother-of-pearl, flashing with its brilliant irridescent hues.
To one who has seen specimens of the finest work—the glorious lacquer of old Japan—the words of the French critic, M. Louis Gonse, exaggerated though they may seem to the uninitiated, appear no more than a mere statement of fact: “Japanese lacquered objects,” he says, “are the most perfect works that have ever issued from the hands of man.”
But specimens of really fine lacquer are rarely to be seen outside Japan, where they are treasured in the collections of the wealthy. The British Museum possesses hardly anything which is really fine, South Kensington only a few small pieces. The bulk of the fine lacquer in this country is divided between a few private collections, chief among which is that of Mr M. Tomkinson at Franche Hall, near Kidderminster—a marvellous collection, rich in examples of all periods, and containing many exquisite pieces of work.
Though tradition says that lacquer-work was known in Japan as early as 392 B.C. it is supposed that the art, like others, came originally from China. At first its uses were purely utilitarian. Drinking-vessels were coated with lacquer to render them water-tight, and as the surface was hard as glass, and withstood considerable heat, it was also used largely for cooking and other household utensils. Indeed, this explains the slow development of the potter’s art in Japan, for where we would use glass or earthenware the Japanese used lacquered vessels. The armour of an old Japan warrior was often leather coated with lacquer; the sword was in a lacquered scabbard. He ate off a lacquered tray, drank out of a lacquered cup, and rode in a lacquered carriage.
The lac is a natural product—the gum exuded by the urushi-tree (rhus vernicifera), a species of sumach. The finest lac of all was obtained from very old trees; but, as the tapping and drawing of the sap resulted in the death of the tree, the supply had to be continually renewed, and so in mediæval times landowners were compelled by law to plant annually a certain number of trees, and the export of lac was strictly forbidden. Even the Dutch traders of Nagasaki were not allowed to include it in their shiploads of porcelain and other wares, with the exception of a few pieces of inferior quality, specially manufactured, like the Imari ware, for the European market. It is safe to say that until the Paris Exhibition of 1867 no really fine lacquer had ever been seen in Europe.