Those lacquerware are made using the traditional art skills of curving wood with a woodworking lathe which have been developed over 450 years in Yamanaka (meaning “mountainous area” in Japanese) hot-spring village in Ishikawa Prefecture, where is located along the Daishoji River and surrounded by mountains just as the name suggests.
Lacquerware products are made through a clear division of labor, which is a system to allow each specialist craftsman to handle each work process, such as base shaping, undercoating, lacquer application, and makie-decoration. A merchant who takes responsible for setting up the entire process coordinates craftsmen based on the image of a finished product and seeks to create one good product in collaboration with professional craftsmen who is an expert in the field.
“Vertical cut” is a technique to cut across the grain, which is unique to Yamanaka lacquerware. It is considered to an ideal technique that takes advantage of the wood characteristics. Products made by this technique are less deformable, more shock-proof and tougher than those made by the “horizontal cut” technique which is widely used. All work processes from drying wooden bases to curving wood with a woodworking lathe use special and inimitable techniques which have been developed in Yamanaka over many years.
* Some products are made by not using the vertical-cut technique.
