Bagan’s Legendary Lacquer

Bagan, in central Burma, is not only famous for its more than 2,000 ancient temples and pagodas, but also for its legendary lacquerware, which is one of Bagan’s main sources of income. For extraordinarily beautiful lacquerware of the highest quality, both old and new, Bagan is the place to buy them because this is where it is produced in a complicated and time-consuming process that requires a very high level of craftsmanship and artistic skills, both delivered. from generation to generation in the many family-owned lacquerware businesses in Bagan.

The history of lacquer can be traced back to the “Shang dynasty”, which ruled a kingdom centered in the Huang He (Yellow River) valley in China from about 1570 BC. C. until approximately 1045 a. C. They developed the first lacquer and the first examples of lacquer are archaeological. fragments from the time when the ‘Shang dynasty’ ruled China from where this art came to Burma.

Lacquer work is the process of applying a varnish to the surfaces of a material as a decorative and protective device. Lacquer is a mixture of resins (natural and synthetic), a derivative of cellulose and other materials. After applying lacquer, a quick-drying liquid that is applied to the surfaces of objects to provide a rigid, decorative and protective layer, the solvents evaporate and the cellulose and resins dry and undergo a chemical reaction that leaves a hard but flexible layer. The two most notable features of lacquer are that it creates a surface impervious to high temperatures and humidity and that it mixes easily with color pigments and/or other embellishments.

Since it came to Burma, present-day Myanmar, sometime in the 1st century AD through the ‘Nan-Chao Empire’, present-day Yunnan, it has become here an art of fine quality and belongs to the genre of arts and crafts. Burmese traditional. craft. The Burmese term for lacquerware is ‘Yung Hte’, which means ‘The Goods of Yunnan’. Pagan/Bagan, where the art of making lacquerware is believed to have been brought during King Anawrahta’s (1044 to 1077) conquest of Thaton in 1057, and Prome/Pyay are the current centers of Myanmar’s lacquerware industry . Other cities with lacquer tradition are Mandalay, Kyauk Ka and Kyaing Tong.

The different types of lacquerware from Burma/Myanmar are:

a) Kyauk Ka Ware, (Simple Lacquerware), b) Yun Ware (Incised Lacquerware), c) Shwe Zawa Ware (Gold Lacquerware), d) Tha-Yo (Relief Cast Lacquerware), e) Hmansi Ware ( mosaic and guild lacquer), f) Man, Man Paya or Hnee Paya (dry lacquer).

Lacquer wares produced in times past were efficiently of extraordinarily fine quality and only one technique was applied: the dry lacquer technique. For example, lacquer bowls were produced around bamboo basketry and braided horsehair, often even just horsehair, which requires a great deal of time and patience to braid into long, thin threads. The result was a degree of flexibility that allowed the rim of the bowl to be attached without peeling off the lacquer or breaking the bowl; such superior quality, of course, comes at a rather high price. Two other brewing techniques prevail today. Inferior lacquer wares have a wooden base. Superior items often have a core of bamboo wicker only, which means greater durability and elasticity.

a) Kyauk Ka Merchandise

‘Kyauk Ka lacquerware’ mainly includes utilitarian items used in the home, such as trays, cups, vases, goblets and betel boxes. This fairly simple type of lacquer is black on the outside and red on the inside. No work of artistic value is needed or used in the production of this item. His name, Kyauk Ka, originates from the village. Kyauk Ka tableware is sold at very reasonable prices.

b) YunWare

‘Yun Lacquerware’ items are mainly produced for decorative and votive purposes and are objects such as furniture (eg tables, sideboards, chairs), bowls, vases, wall hangings, paravents, jewelry boxes, heirloom chests, quality napkin rings, chopsticks and bracelets. Yun pottery ware is highly decorative, and the artfully incised areas on the black surface depicting intricate designs of floral, animal, and human figure ornaments are filled with red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and white.

c) Shwezawa Items

‘Shwezawa’ or ‘Guild Lacquerware’ basically includes any type of article that is intended to be highly decorative and unique in appearance. For the artistically incised parts of the respective object with a stylus, gold foil is applied after the area in question is coated with lacquer. Due to the use of gold foil and the high degree of artistry required to produce Shwezawa wares, these wares are comparatively expensive.

d) Tha-Yo

‘Tha-Yo’ is a relief molded lacquerware and any type of object can be adorned with Tha-Yo. From small boxes and coffins to furniture. As its name suggests, animal bone ash (tha-yo) is mixed with rice husks, sawdust, and/or even cow soak and lacquer and polished into a soft, pliable plaster, which is then rolled into threads. of different thicknesses. These plaster threads are then used to create reliefs by applying them to the lacquered surface of the relevant object to be decorated and shaping them into the chosen design with a stylus. Once the relief is finished, which now adheres firmly to the surface, it dries and is covered with several layers of lacquer. In the final stage, the reliefs are gilded or colored, which gives the relief design the appearance of being carved from the material from which the object is made or molded in one piece with the item it embellishes.

e) Hmansi merchandise

‘Hmansi lacquer’ is actually a combination of ‘Shwezawa’ and ‘Tha-Yo’ complemented by glass, mirror, marble and/or mother-of-pearl mosaics. This type of lacquer ware is effectively used for articles serving decorative and votive purposes and for the embellishment of furniture. It is not appropriate for utilitarian goods since the reliefs, on the one hand, have a high decorative value but, on the other hand, limit the use of the objects to a more practical use. Variable-sized pieces of different colored glass, marble mirror and/or mother-of-pearl are bonded onto the tha-yo-adorned, lacquered surface of the object using a special lacquer as an adhesive. In the next stage, gold foil is applied to the entire surface and is then removed from the materials used for mosaic surfaces by simply washing it off with water. However, to the lacquered parts of the surface the gold leaf remains attached. Since both the material and the artistic craftsmanship used are expensive and the finished products have high decorative value, Hmansi lacquerware is quite expensive.

f) Payá Man

This term refers to ‘dry lacquerware’ and is used in Burma/Myanmar for this type of lacquerware (Man Paya) because pagoda votive items, mainly Buddha images, are dry lacquerware. The name has little to do with the technique in which the item is produced, but as stated it is derived from the votive purpose of these items. To apply lacquer on a wooden surface, basketry, etc. it is called ‘Man’ and ‘Paya’ means pagoda. Later, ‘Man Paya’ is a lacquered rattan work for a pagoda. Since the frame of Buddha statues, which is made of bamboo rattan, is called ‘Hnee’, this type of lacquer is also called ‘Hnee Paya’. But, as stated above, the proper name is dry lacquer. Making dry-lacquered objects is a months-long process, involving twelve or more production steps, requiring high-quality materials, cool, ventilated, and dust-free drying chambers, as well as a high level of artistic craftsmanship. The end result is an extraordinarily fine, high-quality lacquered product.

The entire production process, as described below, begins with the collection of lacquer. True lacquer is made from the purified and dehydrated sap of ‘Rhus vernicifera’, a species of sumac tree found in Southeast Asia. This is the material on which traditional lacquer work is usually done in Asian countries. Shellac, traditionally used in European and American lacquerware and wares, is produced from the secretion of the scale insect ‘Laccifer lacca’.

In the first step, raw lacquer is extracted in exactly the same way as latex is extracted from rubber trees taken from the ‘Thitsi’ tree (Melanorrhoea usitatissima), a tree that grows both wild and in artificial plantations (cultivated ) in Shan state. The gray sticky extract turns hard and black on contact with oxygen (air).

Next, a light bamboo basketry combined with horsehair or a basketry exclusively of horsehair is made. The latter is of the highest quality and the most expensive, while the former is of lower quality (due to cheaper and less good material, as well as much easier to handle) and consequently available at lower prices. .

Once finished, the core material/basic item is properly coated with a layer of a mixture of lacquer and clay. The object is then stored in an airy, dry, dust-free drying chamber for three to four days to gradually dry and harden.

In the next stage of production, the object is coated with a mixture of Thitsi lacquer and ash. Other support materials are, for example, rice hulls, teak sawdust or cow manure. The fineness of these support materials determines the quality standard of the final product in terms of the material part. The surface of the object is polished until smooth after drying, and the coating and polishing process is repeated several times until even the slightest irregularity is removed.

Now the item is black on the outside and inside and it is decided whether it will be embellished by engraving, gilding, painting, embossing, mosaic or a combination of two or more of the different forms of decoration.

Cheaper but very beautiful items are artfully painted. The value and attractiveness and subsequently the price of lacquer increases with the materials used, as well as the number of techniques applied and the degree of artistic craftsmanship in which they are executed.

The most expensive items are engraved, painted and polished – the colors usually used are gold, yellow, red, blue and green – or adorned with gilt or colored reliefs, painted and specially polished. Some are also inlaid with pieces of mirror, glass of different colors, marble and mother-of-pearl.

The production of multi-technique and multicolor dry lacquerware requires between six and twelve months, sometimes even more. The art and craft of lacquerware manufacturing are indeed hereditary, that is, they are passed down from generation to generation. It is a family and domestic business even when it is carried out on a larger scale in the so-called lacquer factories. But there are also special centers like the ‘Lacquerware Manufacturing Institute’ in Bagan. Here the knowledge and skills necessary for the art of lacquer are transmitted to new generations who will perpetuate this wonderful art and craft.