What Is Maki-e ?

I've been researching and buying and selling maki-e items for so long that when I am asked a simple question like "what is maki-e", I am reminded, that not everyone is an advanced collector. We all start from the beginning and several years back, I too knew next to nothing about maki-e. So this page is a little introduction for the new people.

Maki-e is an ancient Japanese art form, thought to have originally been brought over from China during the Heian period (794-1185) and further developed by the Japanese artists. The Japanese word 'Makie' literally means "sprinkled picture" and involves the sprinkling of gold or silver dust over a design that has been drawn in lacquer while it is still damp and sticky. Japanese lacquer is traditionally made from the Japanese Urushi tree, a specises of tree that is closely related to poison ivy. As you can imagine, working with traditional urushi lacquer is not always pleasant, it can cause rashes and swelling if it comes into contact with the artists skin. I've taken maki-e lessons, and I can testify to this. Today, synthetic lacquers are often used to avoid the toxic effects of working in traditional urushi lacquer.

Fountain pens are not traditional Japanese items, and maki-e artists were not thrilled about working on these. Namiki Ryouske, the founder of Pilot pens had been working on ways to prevent hard rubber pens from oxydizing - turning dull brown from setting in the sun. His soulution was to coat the pens with urushi lacquer. After successfully mastering this, he had artists brought in and created traditonal maki-e artwork on these pens. It became a sense of pride for the Japanese that their art was being sought after by foreign markets and Namkiki used this fact to recruit some of the top maki-e artists.

Maki-e artwork makes use of many techniques. Here are some of the basic ones explained.

Hiramaki-e: A relativlely flat finish lacquer work. A few layers over the base pen, then the art design layers and a final clear layer for protection.

Togidashi: layers of gold dust, often in different grades and colors

Takamaki-e A high relief finish, created by building up layers of lacquer to desired areas.