What are the characteristics of lacquerware in the Warring States period?

During the Warring States period, lacquerware technology inherited the technology of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and the production scale was expanding day by day, which became an important growth period in history. Lacquerware has been integrated into people's daily life. The production of lacquerware has been socialized, the use of lacquerware has been recognized by the society, and its characteristics such as portability, no odor, corrosion resistance, warmth and heat insulation have been widely recognized.

At this time, lacquerware products have been widely used in all walks of life. Judging from the relics found in tombs, lacquerware gradually increased and bronzes gradually decreased among the funerary objects showing the status of rulers, which shows that the lacquerware technology at that time was quite mature.

The most common lacquerware in the Warring States period is daily necessities, such as urns, boxes, boxes, cards, badges, pillows, beds, cases, watches, boxes, screens, scales and so on.

Followed by weapons and musical instruments, such as bells, hammers, braids, drums, drums, harpsichord, harp, sheng, flute, armor, bow, crossbow, spear, spear, arrow and so on. Some lacquerware is made by imitating bronze and pottery, while others imitate the shape of animals.

These works are based on black paint, and various patterns are drawn on them with pigments or oil painting pigments. The pattern is fine, smooth and beautiful. In addition to geometric patterns such as diamonds, squares and triangles, the patterns are mostly dot patterns, mesh patterns, moire patterns, circular patterns, Kuiwen patterns and dragon and phoenix patterns.

Lacquerware in the Warring States period was mostly combined with bronzes, while the technology of embedding turquoise and mussel pieces in the Shang Dynasty was basically absent. Lacquer painting is widely used in the decoration of lacquerware in Chu state, and techniques such as gold and silver description and needle carving have appeared.

There are many decorative patterns in this period, mainly red, black, yellow, blue, green, brown, gold, silver and silver gray, but red and black are the most, and gold and silver are the least.

The background color of lacquerware is in harmony with the color of decorative patterns, emphasizing the use of contrast colors. Most lacquerware uses black as the background and red as the pattern.

During the Warring States period, lacquerware was mainly made of wooden tires, including pottery tires, bronze tires, leather tires, sandwiched tires, bamboo tires and bone horn tires, among which heavy wooden tires were the most. In the middle period, the embryonic form of sandwiched tires and thin wooden tires appeared, and in the later period, the number of lacquerware inlaid with metal increased, that is, buckles, which became the treasures of lacquerware in the Warring States period.

Leather tire lacquerware mainly has paint shields and nails, while bamboo tire lacquerware mainly has paint lines.

In the manufacturing process, different manufacturing methods are adopted due to different materials and shapes. The objects are painted with fetal bone lacquerware such as copper, pottery, bones and horns, and some are painted with patterns. There are usually three methods in the process of making wooden tire lacquerware.

Lacquerware in the middle of the Warring States period was combined with metalworking, that is, bronze components such as copper rings, copper hooves, copper feet and copper paving rings were assembled after the wooden tires were made, and then painted, and then various patterns were drawn.

In the late Warring States period, a new technology of copper buckle appeared, that is, outside lacquerware such as bottles and swallows, it was reinforced with bronze hoop. There are four main methods to paint wood tires: painting, digging, rolling and carving, and some objects use several methods at the same time. Some lacquerware also found some words carved and branded with knives, which is the symbol of the names of industrial workshops, lacquerware crafts or lacquerware craftsmen, and also the symbol of the developed lacquerware manufacturing industry in the Warring States period.

Lacquerware of Chu State is the most representative object in the Warring States Period. Besides the huge social factors in the Warring States period, there are also some reasons for the high development of lacquerware in Chu State.

First of all, Chu is located in the Hanshui River Basin of the Yangtze River, where a large area of sumac trees and rich bamboo and wood resources grow.

Secondly, the development of lacquerware technology in Chu is closely related to the development of Chu territory, social economy and culture. Chu people not only accepted the influence of lacquer decoration technology in the northern part of the Central Plains, but also made extensive contacts with Qin, Pakistan, Shu and other countries, which made lacquer technology develop by leaps and bounds, and also inherited the excellent achievements of local early lacquerware.

Thirdly, fine division of labor and standardized production with high procedures are also important reasons for Chu lacquerware to lead in the Warring States period. Chu lacquerware has different division of labor, such as tire making, painting, painting and polishing. Attention should be paid to the combination with metalworking and the similarity of specifications and shapes.

Chu lacquerware became the representative of the prosperity of lacquerware in the Warring States period, which not only had a great influence on the lacquerware making technology in the Central Plains and Bashu area at that time, but also inspired the lacquerware in the Qin and Han Dynasties.

Therefore, among the lacquerware in the Warring States period, Chu lacquerware is the most important, with the largest production area, the richest variety and the largest quantity. The lacquerware of Chu is distributed in Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other provinces, among which Hubei has the most lacquerware.

30 Chu tombs of the Warring States Period were unearthed in Yicheng, Hubei. Lacquerware is mostly wood, with internal infrared black and a few internal and external black. Some objects are painted with geometric patterns, moire patterns and dot patterns in red and brown on the black ground. The lacquerware is in the shape of ear cups, cups, statues and beans.

A large number of lacquerware were found in jiangling county Shazhong and Wangshan cemeteries, most of which were practical and funerary objects. Among them, a small painted wooden screen found in Wangshan cemetery is the most representative. Various animal images are carved by combining carving and relief. The picture is painted in black paint, with scarlet, gray-green, gold and silver colors.

A flat pot-shaped sagittal plate with bird and beast patterns in the Warring States Period, found in a tomb in Jiangling Sand, is 23.5cm high, 22cm wide at the top and18cm wide at the bottom, and is made of wood. The arrow is a flat box with a big top and a small bottom, which is formed by bonding a front panel, a back panel, a bottom panel and a side panel.

There is a bird, two phoenixes and two leopards carved on the panel; And painted the feathers of birds and phoenixes and the patterns of leopards with red paint on the black lacquered ground. Two small snakes are embossed on the top of the picture frame, and the scales of the snakes are painted with red paint on the black paint floor. The other three sides of the frame are painted with red paint on the black painted floor.

The painted wood carving of this tomb in the sand is 5 1.8cm long, 3cm wide, 12cm wide and 15cm high. Wooden tires, carving. Both ends of the screen seat touch the ground, and the middle is suspended; A rectangular carved screen is vertically embedded in the screen seat.

There are four deer, four phoenix, four birds, two frogs and one small snake 1 1 in the picture, which forms a two-way continuous pattern centering on the competition between two phoenix snakes. There are 8 embossed snakes on the frame of the picture, and 22 embossed pythons are intertwined on the base of the picture.

The picture is painted in black paint, and the feathers of phoenix birds, the plum blossom stripes of deer, and the scales of snakes and pythons are painted in red, yellow and blue. Red, blue and silver twisted bird patterns are painted on both sides of the outer frame.

The craftsmen of Chu skillfully interweave 55 kinds of animals and fight with each other, with complex and regular changes; The bird's tail and small snake connect the outer frame with the carved screen, and the python's head or tail intersects the seat to connect the screen seat with the carved screen. Its rich imagination and outstanding achievements in lacquer painting and wood carving make this small seat screen one of the representative works of ancient wood carving and lacquer worker art in China.

The moire ear cup of painted birds in Jichengchu Tomb in Jiangling is17.5cm long,16.5cm wide and 4.2cm high. Wooden tires, supplemented by digging wood. The mouth of the cup is oval with symmetrical ears and a flat bottom. The whole body is painted with black paint, and the ears and both ends of the cup mouth are painted with red and yellow paint, and the lines are smooth.

This kind of moire ear cup has pinnate ears, which was called "feather cup" in ancient times. There is a saying in "Songs of Chu" that "Yao has dense pulp but many feathers", which was a drinking vessel at that time. This artifact is light and smart, with obvious contrast between black and red, moire patterns flowing and dragons and phoenixes dancing in it.

Li Jiatai found more than 20 pieces of lacquerware, among which lacquer wooden shield is the most distinctive lacquerware in Chu State. Nearly 1,000 pieces of lacquerware were found in Yutai Mountain, jiangling county, among which painted mandarin duck-shaped lacquerware beans and painted flat lacquerware are the most representative works of lacquerware in the State of Chu.

A painted tiger and bird hanging drum found in a tomb in Zaolinpu, Jiangling, with a drum diameter of 38.4 cm and a height of 86 cm. Carved from wooden tires, it consists of two tigers, two birds and a drum.

Two tigers lie prone with their heads up, and two birds stand on the tigers' backs with their heads up. The bird's leg is inserted in the tenon eye of the tiger's back, and the bird's tail is connected with tenon and tenon. The round flat drum is connected between two birds by three copper rings with silk thread. The whole body is painted with black paint and the pattern is painted with red and yellow paint. Two tigers draw stripes, birds draw feathers, and drum frames draw oblique triangular moire.

In addition, more than 100 pieces of lacquerware were found in Tianxingguan, among which the Qi Diao seat screen is the most representative, with a height of 13.2 cm and a width of 49 cm. The wooden tire consists of a convex seat and a rectangular screen.

There is a vertical wood in the middle of the screen, and Yi Long is carved on both sides. Dragons are opposite and their tails are connected. They stare, stick out their tongues, bend over and bend their claws, making them want to soar. The seat screen is painted with black paint. Moire patterns are engraved on the front and rear slopes of the base, and triangular moire patterns are decorated on the side faces and vertical trees at both ends of the base. All the decorative patterns are painted red, yellow and gold.

The excavation of the tomb of Zeng Houyi is another important discovery of lacquerware in Chu State. More than 5,000 pieces of lacquerware were found, and the fetal bones were basically made of a whole piece of wood. Decorative patterns are mainly relief, through carving and painting, mostly black paint or black paint, among which 28 suitcases and Yuanyang boxes are the most representative.

Ceng Houyi painted a suitcase with 28 night pictures, which is 7 1cm long, 47cm wide and 40.5cm high. It is made of wooden tires, supplemented by digging wood. It consists of a cover and a container body. The container body is a cuboid, and the top of the lid is arched. The inside is painted with red paint, the surface is painted with black paint, and the names of twenty-eight families and other words and patterns are written with red paint.

In the middle of the box cover, there is a big word "dou" in the seal script, and the names of 28 inns are arranged clockwise around the word "dou", which is the same as that in Historical Records? The names of the 28 huts in the official book are basically the same. Draw a dragon and a white tiger at each end of the cover. Under Ruan Su, there is the word "Jiayin for three days".

At both ends of the suitcase, one side is painted with toad pattern and star pattern; The other side is painted with a large mushroom cloud pattern and a star pattern. On both sides, while painting the confrontation between two beasts, cirrus and star patterns; There is no pattern on the other side.

This suitcase is the earliest astronomical material discovered in China, with all the names of Twenty-eight Hostels on it, and equipped with Beidou and Four Elephants, indicating that the system of Twenty-eight Hostels was formed in China at least in the early Warring States period.

It should be noted that, unlike the conventional map of the Twenty-eight Hostels, the names of the Twenty-eight Hostels in this map are arranged in an oval shape clockwise, and only the Qinglong in the East Palace and the White Tiger in the West Palace appear, but there is no Suzaku in the Nangong and tortoise and snake in Gong Bei.

If all sides of the whole paint box are unfolded, it is found that the patterns on the south facade represent the birds in Nangong, while the northern facade is all painted black to represent Xuanwu, that is, tortoise and snake.

This reverse arrangement of 28 rooms is a well-thought-out design. The designer used the arched box cover as a symbol of the round sky and the rectangular box bottom as a symbol of the earth. When people stand on the earth and look up at the sky, these 28 huts will be arranged counterclockwise.

Thus, this lacquer box with a star map, with the cover as the sky, the four sides as the ground and the bottom as the ground, constitutes a complete model of the universe.

The mandarin duck box with music and dance patterns in Zeng Houyi's tomb is made of wood, with a length of10.3cm, a width of 6.4cm and a height of 8.6cm.. Yuanyang is divided into two halves and then stuck together. Its box is red and its box is black. Yuanyang's eyes, mouth and feathers are painted with red paint and gold.

And draw pictures on both sides of the mandarin duck box: dragon-shaped double-layer shelf, with two permanent bells hanging on the upper layer and two stone chimes hanging on the lower layer, with musicians holding long sticks and leaning against the bells; The other is that musicians beat drums, and dancers wear crowns and hold swords.

The bucket covered with dragon and phoenix patterns in the tomb of Zeng Houyi is 24.3 cm high, 20.8 cm long and 18 cm wide. It is made of wood, not carved. It is divided into two parts: cover and text. The cover and handle of the main body are carved separately. Three dragons are embossed in the center of the roof, and moire is carved in the first and third circles from the inside out, and moire is carved in the second circle, and moire is painted on the moire.

The inside, outside, top and five sides of the square ear are embossed with dragon patterns of different shapes. The handle is round and the seat is big and flat. The inside of the tray and lid are painted with red paint, while the rest are painted with black paint, and the patterns are painted with red and gold. The seat is painted with diamond pattern, triangle pattern and deformed phoenix pattern.

There is also a dragon-shaped cover bean with a height of 28.3 cm, a length of 12.6 cm and a width of 17.3 cm, carved with wooden tires. It is divided into two parts: cover and text. The cover and handle of the main body are carved separately. Two coiled dragons are embossed in the center of the roof, and the periphery is decorated with deformed moire patterns. There are five groups of embossed bibcock or dragon body patterns at both ends. The five sides of the square ear are also embossed with dragon patterns.

The disc of the body is oval with embossed square ears on both sides. The handle is round. Paint the inside of the tray with red paint, paint the rest with black paint, and draw patterns in red and gold; The upper part of the outer side of the disc is moire, the lower part is moire, and the handle and seat are moire.

The inner coffin and outer coffin found in the tomb of Zeng Houyi are the largest lacquerware known. The outer coffin is 3.20m long, 2.10m wide and 2.19m high.