Posted 6 months ago Comments
I came accross this beautiful article on Listening To The Leaves. To see the full article, click here.
Satsuma ware tea bowl, Japan, 17th c, Edo periodIt happens eventually. You drop your favorite yixing teapot, or you chip that gorgeous little antique cup you love to drink out of. What to do? There’s super glue, there’s the trash can, or there’s the beautiful art of kintsugi — essentially, repairing broken teaware with veins of gold.
Kintsugi is said to have originated in the 15th century when a Japanese shogun broke a favorite tea bowl and sent it back to China to be fixed. But the repair job, which was done with metal staples (being the standard for repair at that time), detracted from the beauty of the bowl, so the shogun enlisted Japanese craftsmen to come up with a more aesthetically pleasing solution. Kintsugi, which means “golden joinery,” was born.
Japan, early 18th c, Edo period
Although kintsugi repair makes it appear as though the original piece was mended with gold, the process is essentially a form of lacquer art. Broken pieces are glued back together using urushi lacquer, derived from the sap of the Chinese lacquer tree (Latin name, Toxicodendron vernicifluum), with the final layer of urushi covered with fine gold powder. The “toxic” part comes from the urushiol oil which is found in very high amounts in the tree’s sap, and which also happens to be the ingredient that’s responsible for forming the dense and highly durable lacquer once dried. You might have come into contact with urushiol yourself if you ever had a tangle with some poison oak or ivy, which are also of the Toxicodendron family of plants. Fortunately, once the urushi dries and hardens the toxic effects of the urushiol oil are essentially nullified, making the lacquer ware safe to handle and even to use in contact with food, or tea.
