A golden opportunity

A visit to an exhibition in 2007, just before his college graduation, changed the trajectory of Hou Xue's career. The simple yet majestic decorative screens and elegant cabinets that featured the gold lacquer inlaying technique took Hou's breath away.

"The aesthetic of the exquisite craftsmanship was stunning," the 39-year-old Beijing resident says.

"It felt like a dream when I touched the furniture and utensils used by a royal family."

The stories of Bai Deyuan, the craftsman who dedicated his life to pursuing the technique, also cast a spell on Hou.

When Bai Qun, Bai Deyuan's son, a national inheritor of the gold lacquer inlaying technique and the exhibition's host, asked Hou if he was interested in learning the craft, Hou readily agreed.

"It was an impulsive decision and a deviation from what I had planned to do after graduation," Hou says, adding that he was just about to finish his studies in art and design at North China University of Technology. "At that time, I just wanted to apply for a job as an art editor or art designer at a newspaper or magazine," he says.

For him, the decision kicked off an arduous yet rewarding journey of exploring gold lacquer inlaying, a skill that was named a national intangible cultural heritage by the State Council in 2008.

Gold lacquer inlaying is an important category among traditional crafts and boasts a long history. Beijing was once an important lacquerware production area and today's gold lacquer inlaying has mainly carried forward techniques and art styles from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. It has been applied to utensils, furniture, screens, plaques and wall decorations.

Lacquer is a natural resin that can help prevent items made of wood from cracking, iron from rusting and pottery from leaking. Ancient artisans either ground gold into powder and mixed it with lacquer or stuck thin gold foil onto lacquer when doing the inlaying on dried wood.

"It was for both preservation and decorative purposes," Hou says.

Different from lacquer works found in other regions around China, gold lacquer inlaying integrates various artistic techniques from across the country and features distinctive royal elements, such as patterns of auspicious clouds and dragons.

"Gold is stable and a royal symbol, and the craft allowed for the creation of durable things for the emperors," Hou says.

"The royal families brought together the country's top artisans, all contributing their skills to the creation of cultural items, such as color paintings from Shanxi and inlaying from Yangzhou."

A piece of gold lacquer inlaying can feature one or multiple decoration techniques and includes a variety of elements inspired by literature, religion and mythology. A good measure of the craft can be attained by visiting the Palace Museum in Beijing.

"More than 70 percent of wooden furniture items and lacquer works there have gold lacquer inlays," Hou says.

The craft, when learned today, involves four major parts that cover molding, design, lacquering and decorating. Artisans learn how to make and apply tile powder and lacquer to woodwork. "The coatings made of tile powder smooth the rough surface of the wood, laying the groundwork for applying lacquer."

Then, they learn the first three of the multiple decorative skills that cover color drawings, carvings, whetting, gems and relief inlaying. Usually, it takes more than three years to grasp each of the decorative skills. "That doesn't include the many years it takes to refine them."

Therefore, in the past, the grand and complex examples of gold lacquer inlaying were mostly borne of collaborations involving several artisans.

In recent years, Hou has focused his attention on jade and relief inlaying and thin gold foil design on lacquer.

The moment he stepped into the workshop at the Beijing Gold Lacquer Inlaid company in 2009, he realized the difficulty of turning the materials into delicate works of art.

"The workshop was smoldering hot in summer and freezing cold in winter," he recalls, adding that raw materials, like pig's blood, added to the smell in the room.

"You have to select, move and carve big stones by hand," Hou says. But the idea of delivering delicate lacquer work pulled him through the rough early years. "For the color paintings, you need a steady hand on the pen for every stroke to ensure the coloring spreads out well."

He had to chop plants into fibers as thin as 0.5 millimeters before putting them into the lacquer to enhance its texture. "It's a tricky job, because the fibers are fragile and you need to keep their length intact, which is often more than 20 centimeters."

It takes accuracy and precision to stick the thin gold foil onto the lacquer as well.

"The foil will look foggy if stuck to the lacquer too early, or comes off too late, because natural lacquer contains water," he says. "We have to touch the lacquer with our fingers to decide the right time."

Hou's skills made great strides when he joined an antique restoration project at the Palace Museum from 2014-16. When trying to restore a blue lacquer item from the Qing era, he had to apply eight layers of paint, each no more than 2 millimeters thick, to achieve the original color.

"The color should go from light to dark and lacquer application has to be on the same area and done around the same time daily to avoid chromatic aberration," Hou says.

The experience granted him a new understanding about items with gold lacquer inlays. Other than appreciating the art, the history behind each delicate antique has to be understood.

In 2019, Hou was named a Beijing art and crafts master by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology and the Beijing Arts and Crafts Trade Association. In addition to restoration work, Hou has also worked to apply traditional crafts to modern life. He and his colleagues have developed many products to sell, such as ornaments, paintings and furniture, that feature gold lacquer inlays. But no matter how busy he is, he continues to hone his skills. Hou says he is inspired by his teacher Hu Xin's commitment to the work.

"You can refer to many photos in search of inspiration," says Hu. "But at the end of the day, you need to have something in your mind that you want to express through the art."

Hou has presented classic traditional paintings through gold lacquer inlaying by experimenting and says the efforts of artisans, especially those ancient craftsmen, made him realize that only practice will refine his skills.

"It's a lifetime's honor to restore items made by the venerable masters," says Hou.