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A Path to Burmese Culture: The Art of Lacquer
From: The British Museum
| By:
Richard Blurton |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Lacquer is a natural plastic refined from the sap of a Southeast Asian tree. In Burma, lacquer has traditionally been used for a wide range of purposes, from furniture, to religious objects, to the betel box, yet it is infrequently displayed in galleries or given due attention as an art form. Here, Richard Blurton, curator of The British Museum's travelling exhibit 'Burma and the Art of Lacquer', running from December 8 to November 3, 2002, provides a glimpse into this fascinating craft. |
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| Hsun ok (offering vessel). | |
 acquer is tree sap, which sets as a natural flexible plastic resistant to water, heat, and insect-damage. It can be applied to a wide variety of surfaces such as wood, leather, metal and palm-leaf, but is most frequently used on split bamboo coiled or woven into vessels. As well as being used in its liquid form as varnish, glue or ink, the sap can be mixed with ash or sawdust to create a putty (thayo) which can be sculpted. |
In Burma the lacquer tree (Gluta usitata) is not cultivated, and sap is collected from the forest. It is from the same family as the tree used in China, but of a different genus. In Burma the tree is tapped by making cuts in the bark and collecting the straw-coloured sap in tubes; after collection, it turns black. |
Lacquerware production
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| Buddha, probably 18th century. | |
Many of the lacquer production processes used today are the same as those recorded 170 years ago. Lacquer vessels are made by hand, and can undergo many different processes during production. Depending on the intricacy of the decoration, it can take three to four months to complete a small vessel while larger pieces can take over a year. No lacquer piece is the product of a single hand, but is the result of specialists in different techniques working together. |
Lacquer vessels are not solid lacquer, but have a wood, bamboo or horsehair base coated with layers of thayo putty and liquid lacquer to create their characteristic smooth surface. The Burmese word yun means both 'lacquer' and a decorative engraving technique. Although gilding and relief decoration are also used, yun is the most common technique used on lacquerware. |
<i>Yun</i>
Yun decoration is made up of a series of tiny lines engraved on the surface of the lacquer object, which are then filled with coloured lacquer. |
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| Detail of a panel decorated in Shwezawa. | |
The most common colours for yun designs are red, green and yellow on red or black backgrounds. The majority of the engraving is done free-hand, though a compass is used for concentric lines. There are no pattern books, nor is it necessary for the design to be measured out first; it is all arranged by eye. The decoration of a single object requires thousands of engraved lines with the design for the red, yellow or green engraved, coloured and then dried separately. The designer often undertakes the engraving of the more complicated elements, while younger, less-experienced workers fill in much of the detail. |
Secular uses of lacquer
The properties of lacquer, both as a protective sealant and as a medium for decoration, mean that the opportunities for its use are practically limitless. In the average Burmese household, it was particularly useful for making vessels used for the storage, preparation and consumption of rice such as storage pails, steamers, serving trays, food stands, and cooked rice carriers. Lacquered vessels were also used for other foodstuffs, including liquids such as oil. The main meal may have been accompanied with water served from a carafe, preceded by snacks served from a lahpet tray, and followed by a digestive from the betel box. All of these items were made of lacquered basketry, either woven or coiled. |
In most Burmese houses, substantial furniture did not exist, but clothing was often kept in a special cylindrical basket (bi it) and medicine also had its own containers. When theatre and music troupes visited, they brought their own lacquered objects--masks, costume, headdresses, and musical instruments. |
Inscriptions on lacquer
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| Two hsun ok decorated with gilded lacquer putty and coloured glass. | |
Inscriptions on lacquer items are seldom formal and often engagingly lively. All have something to tell us about real people living in a different culture. Most frequent are the names of maker, owner or donor. A maker keen to sell his wares always gives his address, often asserts their qualities and cites if he can, in support of his claims, the awards he has won for his craftsmanship. Frequently he finds space for good wishes for the health and prosperity of the buyer and users. A few buyers commission important articles and have their names conspicuously inscribed by the maker, but most purchasers take the piece home and add their name to it, usually daubed on the underside. Donors to monasteries, almost always couples, take care to record their names and their deed of merit in the object donated. Inscriptions are most commonly made using the yun engraving tool, although in Kentung, thayo was used to form relief lettering. |
The European encounter with Burmese lacquer
Although known to travellers, traders and diplomats from Europe by the 17th century, the first scientific record of the Burmese lacquer tree and the use made of lacquer sap in Burma is to be found in the work of Nathaniel Wallich (1786-1854). By birth a Dane and by training a medical doctor, Wallich is renowned today as a botanist, eminent in plant-collecting and categorisation. |
In 1826-7 Wallich visited Burma with the East India Company in order to report on its natural resources. As a result of this visit, he established the Burmese lacquer tree in its own genus and published it as Melanorrhoea usitatissima (later, mistakenly, changed to usitata). Back in Calcutta he grew some 500 plants, and managed to bring one back to Kew; sadly there is now no living descendant there. |
His visit to Burma was unfortunately followed by a breakdown in his health, obliging him to return to England to convalesce. However, while there he was able to see his greatest work, the three-volume Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, through the press. This was published in three volumes in 1830, '31 and '32 and includes the first scientific listing and illustration of the lacquer tree. He subsequently returned to India where he continued to record plants and to send dried specimens to botanical gardens in Europe, particularly to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He finally left India for London in 1847, dying only a few years later in 1854, at a house in Gower Street, in Bloomsbury not far from the British Museum. |
Modern lacquer work
The production of lacquer vessels and furniture continues in Burma, responding to changing clientele and circumstances. The main centre is at Pagan, where there has been a government lacquer school since the 1920s. However, sturdy utilitarian wares, mostly of plain black lacquer, are also produced at Kyaukka, in the Chindwin valley. These items are for local consumption, though the Burmese market has declined as porcelain, plastic and metal have replaced lacquer vessels. |
Pagan specialises in the engraved, yun, technique. Exponents are to be found in the recently-established settlement of New Pagan. Here large workshops carry out all the processes of yun work, from the cutting of bamboo strips and the coiling of vessels, right through to engraving with three or four colours. At Pagan, the outlet is mainly to tourists visiting the ancient pagodas, and is thus of ready-made wares. Fine wares can still be made, but they need to be commissioned. |
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