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Woman: I'm standing here in the galleries,
the Japanese galleries at the Portland Art Museum
and we are looking at a recent acquisition.
It is a ewer, which is a particular kind of pitcher
that comes to us from late 16th Century Japan.
Man: The first thing that comes to mind is
its material because when I first walked up to this
I imagined in some way, probably because of
the sides that it was metal.
When I came close to it I realized that it wasn't,
it's wood, is that right?
Woman: Yes, it's wood and what's interesting
is that the body and we often talk about pots
in this anthropomorphic way, the body has a very
slight ... it's almost a cylinder, but it tapers
a little bit at the foot.
The body is sort of in the shape of a bucket.
This isn't carved from a single block of wood
but it's rather a strip of wood that was steamed,
and wrapped.
Then we see these things, these ridges on it,
those are actually strips of bamboo that are
sort of like reinforcing girders that help hold
that steamed wood in that wrapped
cylindrical shape.
Man: So, it's really a process of construction
that's made in a way that is not dissimilar
to the way that we might treat metal.
Woman: If you think of a sheet of metal,
hammered and then bent, that's like that.
What is so interesting, if we think,
okay what are the normal ways that you
handle wood?
Well we think of carving wood.
Man: Yes, exactly.
Woman: That idea of making a vessel by wrapping
a slab of wood into a cylinder and then putting
a bottom on it, that is a technique in which
Japanese wood makers excel.
Man: There's a kind of delicacy
and a kind of ... I think that I get the sense
of the thinness of the wall, that seems to me
only possible in metal and I think that's why
I jumped there.
I think that really speaks to the extraordinary,
sort of tradition out of which this is coming.
I see it as incredibly impressive.
Can we talk a little bit about the way
the wood is treated and the color,
which I find beautiful.
It's got this almost gorgeous, almost patina.
Woman: Yes, it does have a patina.
This ware is an example of Japanese lacquer ware.
The wood turning, the wood bending,
the wood shaping happens and then it goes through
a number of stages of being coated with lacquer.
Lacquer is found in really much of Southeast Asia
and East Asia, but in Japan,
Japanese lacquer was so treasured
by the European's when trade began
that analogous to the way that we use the word
China to associate ceramics with China,
European's used to call works that were lacquered,
Japanned.
Man: Oh is that right?
Woman: It was so associated with Japan.
Lacquer is the sap of a lac tree,
it's a naturally occurring sap,
so think of maple syrup and think of it as
something that tree's ooze out at a particular
season of the year.
You have to go and tap it.
It's thick and viscous like maple syrup.
Interestingly, it's also toxic.
Man: Oh really?
Woman: It has the same chemicals in it
that poison ivy does.
Man: Eeew.
Woman: Lacquer workers have to spend
a lifetime building up resistance to this.
You have this lacquer and then you can ...
there's sort of traditional colors to dye it
and in Japan, those two traditional colors
were black, which you did essentially by mixing
lamp-black, a kind of soot with it.
The other was what you see here,
this fantastic cinnabar red by mixing in
cinnabar which is a powdered mercury.
Man: So this was toxic in two levels?
Woman: This is toxic on two levels, yes!
Man: I suppose one was safe drinking water
out of this, but it does bring that to mind.
Woman: Well, but, by the time it dries
all that toxicity is gone.
What happens is, lacquer has to be painted on
in many, many coats, but what lacquer does ...
and lacquer is used in East Asia from the
4th Century BC on-wards.
Lacquer can make a wooden object like a
high fired porcelain, it can make it perfectly
impervious to leaks and it can hold hot water,
it can hold cold water.
It can handle a variety of temperatures.
It's perfect for containers for liquids.
Man: It's also gorgeous.
The surface has a kind of, almost a kind of
translucence that's this kind of milky,
kind of beautiful ... is that original
or is that a result of its age?
Woman: Well, both because it's many layers
of lacquer.
The lacquer layers are very, very thin
and then they have to dry and then it's polished.
Man: Okay.
Woman: Then other layers put on and it's polished.
The secret of this particular ware,
this comes from a monastic workshop in Japan
and it's called [Negoro-ji], that's the name of
the monastery so we call this Negoro ware.
The first several layers are black
and then the last layers are red.
If you look at the handle, you can see where
it is touched the most often,
the lacquer has worn a little bit thin
and a little bit of the black is coming through
and that is the secret of Negoro ware.
It's seeing that suggestion of black
underneath the red.
Man: It gives it incredible dimension.
Woman: It's like looking into this pool of red
and then seeing the black underneath,
but I think it really gives this depth.
Man: This is an object that comes from
the 16th Century, and yet it is so pristine.
It is in such incredible condition.
It looks as if it was made just a few years ago
and it speaks to, I think, to the resilience,
as you were saying, of the lacquer.
Is it also that these were ...
because they were in a monastic environment
that these were kept out of everyday uses.
Why would this be in such good condition,
do we have any idea?
Woman: Although Negoro ware is very, very
highly treasured today, and this particular shape,
and in this condition is extremely rare,
we know of two similar pieces in
American collections, but that's all that I know of
right now.
Man: Wow.
Woman: Of this particular shape,
this shape belongs to a particular moment in history,
but it's not ... it would not have, to its original
uses or its original makers,
been a particularly precious object.
Man: Okay.
Woman: We wouldn't think of it the way
that Chinese would think of something of Jade.
Man: This was not safeguarded as a
particularly special ...
Woman: It wouldn't have been hidden away,
in fact, that's great because look at the wonderful
black that we can see in the handle.
It's not something that was brought out
at Christmas, it's something that would have
been used.
But, you're quite right that because it was
in a monastery and monasteries are lucky to have
the resources to have a big huge storehouse
with foot thick or two foot thick clay walls
that it would not be subject to the kind of
frequent fires that would happen to,
let's say an urban merchant's collection.
That's one, and the other thing that's
very important, [tea] objects were
treated with a special reference.
Now, that's different from being precious
if you know what I mean.
I'm not talking about preciousness of the material,
but they were revered and taken care of very well.
The Japanese would make Paulownia boxes
and they would keep it in the Paulownia box
which keeps it from expanding
and contracting in different weather.
They take exceptionally good care of things.
Man: It is absolutely gorgeous and I have a totally
new appreciation for it.
Thank you so much.
Woman: I'm glad you like it.