Lacquer masters apply historic touch

Popular decorative motifs included animals, clouds and geometrical shapes.

This was just the beginning of ancient Chinese utilizing lacquer and other materials to make wares that define timeless beauty in their living spaces. By the time lacquerers Yang Ming and Huang worked on Xiushi Lu, there had been 14 primary crafts and over 300 varieties of lacquerware.

In the book, Huang mentions one such sophisticated technique called xipi qi, in which the time-consuming process of coloring, layering and polishing ultimately assumes a dazzling pattern — multiple interlaced colors, predominantly red, yellow and black, sometimes added with other hues to present "a harmonious feeling, and with a closer look, changeable details, a sense of fluidity and splendid luster", as the late scholar Yuan Quanyou once described.