36o ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



their varied appearance. It is almost impossible to give here all 

 the manipulations and artifices, still a short description of the most 

 important categories of ordinary Japanese lacquer wares and their 

 mode of preparation seems to me demanded. There will be con- 

 sidered : 



a. Simple Lacquer Wares of One Colour. 



1. Nuri-tateis not only the name for a finishing lacquer, but also 

 of a particular process, viz. : the simple lacquer coating which is 

 not followed by rubbing and polishing. It shows striation in one 

 direction produced by the strokes of the brush, is finished with one 

 coating on the groundwork after the Naka-nuri-togi, and after 

 hanging or lying in the drying room from i to 2 days is perfectly 

 firm. As I have said before concerning the several lacquer colours, 

 black is obtained by a coat of J6-hana or R6-iro, red by cinnabar 

 lacquer, greenish yellow by orpiment lacquer, and green by adding 

 Sei-shitsu to a transparent lacquer. By mixing black with 

 cinnabar a brown of various shades is obtained, also clouds of light 

 green by a larger quantity of orpiment, and dark green by the 

 admixture of J6-hana or some other black lacquer with the green. 



2. Shun-kei-urushi or Nojiro-Shun-kei is the name of a 

 peculiarly lacquered, yellow wooden ware from Nojiro, a small 

 town north of Akita, near the Japan Sea. Usually in the common 

 lacquer wares the groundwork is made entirely to conceal the 

 character of the wood beneath it, but in this variety the natural 

 veining of the wood is well preserved. After a careful stain- 

 ing of the wood with Se-shime lacquer, with or without the 

 pore-filling admixture, follows a careful rubbing, then a lighter 

 coat of solution of gamboge, or some other yellow liquid dye (e.g. 

 from the fruit of Gardenia florida), and finally a thin coating of 

 transparent lacquer, the Shun-kei-urushi. Generally the yellow 

 vegetable dye is mixed with this last and put on at the same time. 

 On account of the large proportion of oil in this lacquer, the usual 

 rubbing and polishing cannot follow its application, and the article 

 must be left as it is. There must therefore be greater care and 

 cleanliness in the preparation and use of this lacquer than ordinarily, 

 so that the finished product may be free from spots and brush 

 strokes. In this way it shows a transparent yellow or brownish 

 yellow colour, the veins and spots of the wood, and a high lustre. 

 Nojiro-Shun-kei is, however, a rather expensive ware and is seldom 

 exported.^ 



^ I did not visit Nojiro, and only saw imitations in Tokio, which do not equal 

 the beauty of the originals, of which the Royal Industrial Art Museum in Berlin 

 has several fine samples. It is doubtful whether these are made exactly as 

 described above, for all who have mentioned Nojiro-Shun-kei say that its 

 method of manufacture is a trade secret, and that the workmen do not all follow 

 the same method. See K. Hagmeier, in " Mittheil. der deutschen Gesellsch. 

 Ostasiens," 12 Heft, p. 65. 



