Things Thai. Tanistha Dansilp
with mother-of-pearl rims.
Smoothing takes place once each layer is dry, again with a variety of materials according to the stage, including dried leaves, paddy husks and teak charcoal. Finally the finished piece is polished with oil. The natural color of the lacquer is black, and for the red finish that is characteristic of Shan-style lacquerware from the North, the coloring added is ground cinnabar for the best quality (now rare) or the less intense red ochre, which tends to flake.
And all this simply for plain lacquer! The oval box here has a rustic inlay of bamboo wedges in the shape of a flower, and the nested bowls have a decorative rim of mother-of-pearl but for the heights of decorative technique, practiced further south, in central Thailand for the court and major monuments, we have to look at gilded lacquer. Known as lai rod nam, the highly evolved technique of gilded black lacquer was a product of the capital cities, at its best in Ayutthaya from the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, and later in Bangkok from the end of the 18th century. In Thai, this technique, which can justifiably be considered to have risen to an art, is called lai rod nam, meaning a ‘design washed with water.’ It refers to the stage at which the clear spaces in the design are removed, because the delicate nature of finely beaten gold leaf means that it cannot be applied directly as an intricate design, but must be combined with a resist—and it is this that is later washed off.
The starting point is the basic lacquer surface, polished to a perfect sheen. The design which will eventually be rendered in gold leaf is painted onto the surface with a resist, in the same way that batik patterns are created. The resist is known as horadarn ink, and is a sticky combination of makwid gum, sompoy solution and a mineral. As an aid to composition, it is usual to transfer the outline of the design first onto a sheet of paper. This is laid over the lacquer and the lines pricked gently with a needle to create a row of dots. A bag of ash or chalk is pressed over these dots and the paper carefully peeled away to leave a removable trace. The horadarn paint is then applied to the areas that will become the clear background—that is, the reverse of the image.
The whole area is then coated with a quick-drying lacquer resin, which is allowed to dry to the point of being sticky. Gold leaf is laid down over the entire surface. Then, after about 20 hours the work is gently washed with water; the composition of the horadarn ink is such that it absorbs the moisture and expands, pushing the gold leaf above it to become detached. This leaves behind the gold leaf applied to the lines and areas between the resist. Needless to say, the process did not always work perfectly the first time, and a considerable amount of retouching was often needed.
Some of the finest examples of Ayutthayan gilded lacquer work are on manuscript chests and cabinets, as were described under Religious Paraphernalia.
Ironically, while the technique of gilding lacquer came from China, it was Chinese art that was responsible for the decline of standards in Thailand. As Professor Silpa Bhilasri points out, the two conventions were incompatible, with Chinese gilded lacquer design treating spatial elements in a three-dimensional manner. Yet, during the early 19th century the popularity at court for things Chinese encouraged the introduction of this Chinese form of expression, to the detriment of the two-dimensional, complex space-filling Thai art.
Black lacquer boxes from northern thailand, inlaid with bamboo and bone, make cosmetic boxes for a dressing table.
Contemporary mother-of-pearl in the form of a mosaic inlay in black lacquer on curved serving plates.
A rattanakosin period polygonal stand inlaid with mother-of-pearl in Ban Mor, Bangkok.
Mother-of-Pearl Ware
khrueang muk
A craft that probably developed in Ayutthaya as early as the mid-14th century, and which the Thais practice in a distinctive style, is mother-of-pearl inlaid into black lacquer. It is painstaking work: the individual elements are very small and lacquer-embedding involves many applications. Yet the best Thai craftsmen have gone to extremes, not just of intricate detail, but of scale of the finished objects. The best-known examples, remarkable in their execution, are the doors of the ordination hall or ubosot at Wat Phra Kaeo, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. From a distance they display a coherent decorative design, yet close up the decoration resolves into intricate miniature scenes; as the scale changes, so does the part played by the shifting nacreous colors. This is a hallmark of fine mother-of-pearl inlay.
The mother-of-pearl is the nacreous inner layer of the shell of some molluscs, including oysters. As with pearls, the luster is from the translucency of the thin lining, while the play of colors is caused by optical interference. Thai craftsmen favor the green turban shell found on the west coast of southern Thailand for the density of its accretions, but because the shell is naturally curved, it must be cut into small pieces in order to assemble into flat inlay work. Even then, the pieces must be ground and polished to flatten their edges. Working with large numbers of small pieces of shell inevitably complicates the assembly process, but it also stimulates the intricacy characteristic of inlay work.
The design is first traced onto paper. Next, the outer surface of the shell is removed by grinding, and the remaining mother-of-pearl sections are cut into pieces generally no longer than 1 in (2.5 cm). These pieces are honed with flint or a whetstone to reveal the color, and then temporarily glued to a wood backing or a V-shaped wood mount, ready for final cutting. The design is transferred to the shell by tracing paper, which is then cut into individual pieces with a curved bow saw. Removed from the wood mount, the edges of the mother-of-pearl pieces are filed smooth to fit, and pasted face-down into position onto the paper that carries the design.
A collection of mother-of-pearl bowls, stands and boxes from the rattanakosin era, in a display cabinet at Wang Suan palichat, Bangkok. the cone-shaped container is a tieb.
A mother-of-pearl door of phra Montien tham at Wat phra Kaeo, Bangkok, carrying the design of vishnu (narai) on garuda.
The embedding process then starts: several layers of lacquer are applied to the object to be decorated, as described on page 15. While the last layer is still sticky, the assembly of mother-of-pearl pieces on their paper backing is pressed down onto it, paper side out. Once the lacquer is completely dry, the paper and paste are washed off with water.
There still remains a difference in the level between the mother-of-pearl and the lacquer, so the intervening spaces must be filled in with repeated applications of a mixture of lacquer and pounded charcoal (from burnt banana leaves or grass) known as rak samuk. After each application, the surface is carefully polished with a whetstone and a little water, and allowed to dry; the process continues until the mother-of-pearl is finally covered. After thorough drying, the surface is polished with dry banana leaf and coconut oil until the mother-of-pearl appears perfectly and smoothly embedded.
Not surprisingly, such a laborious technique is rarely used nowadays. Modern designs are less complex, and the mother-of-pearl is glued directly to the usually wooden surface of the object. Black tempura and filler are then used for the embedding: lacquer is often not involved at all. The pieces here, including the tieb, a receptacle with a cone-shaped cover used for offering food to monks, are, however, from the old school—magnificent examples of the Rattanakosin period.
Sangkhalok Ware
khrueang sangkhalok
Some of the finest ceramics from