Notes on the History of Lacquer

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Excerpt from Notes on the History of Lacquer: A Paper Read Before the Japan Society of London Incidentally he mentions that they had then no written alphabet, but engraved certain marks on wood, and used knotted cords for the like purpose. It was at this period that they began to study the religious system of China, and to learn from her various literary and artistic methods. In lacquer, however, the Japanese had nothing to learn from the Chinese, on the contrary, we read in the annals of Goshiro that presents of lac, which were sent from Japan to China by the Emperor Hanozono, by the hands of the priest Atsu, in the year 1308, were so much admired that a party of Chinese were sent to Japan, there to study lacquer. Meantime great progress had been made. During all the earlier periods of Japanese history lacquer was specially appreciated for its durability and its applicability to the purposes of daily use. In the temple of Todaiji, at Nara, lacquer boxes containing the manuscript prayer-books are preserved, which are alleged to date from the third century. In the year 380 the Sadaijin Shihei published a book called "Engishiki, " in which he incidentally mentions red lacs and gold lacs, which would indicate an advanced stage in this industry. Eighty years later an official, named Minamotono Juin, in a work entitled "Utsubo Monogatari, " speaks not only of gold lac, but of the gold-powdered lacs, of which I shall have to say more presently, known to the Japanese as Nashiji, or yellow pear-skin lacs. He gives no names, nor does he indicate the seat of production, but he states that these lacs were manufactured by renowned artisans. In the famous book, "Genji Monogatari, " by the celebrated female writer, Murasaki Shikibu, she speaks of a new kind of lac encrusted with mother-of-pearl, the kind of lac known as Raden, showing that already, in her time, there was considerable wealth and variety in the decoration of lac. We read that, in the seventh century, the Emperor Kotoku, who came to the throne in the year 645, took a keen interest in the art of lacquer, and established a special department for its development, under which were placed the chief artists of repute at that time, the production of inferior makes of lac being at the same time prohibited by official order. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.