Crimson & Teal & Black

Crimson is the bengara — the deep vivid crimson of the bengara-urushi (弁柄漆 — 'bengara lacquer' — red lacquer using bengara as the colorant). Bengara (弁柄 — also: benigara; from the placename Bengala — Bengal — referring to the origin of the iron-oxide red pigment imported via Bengal into Japan from approximately the 17th century) is the Japanese name for red iron oxide (Fe₂O₃ — hematite — the same pigment as the Western 'English Red,' 'Indian Red,' and the pigment used in Siena and Pozzuoli earth colors). In Japanese lacquerware tradition: bengara-urushi is one of the two most fundamental red lacquers (the other being shu — 朱 — cinnabar lacquer, made from mercury sulfide — HgS — vermilion — the most vivid and most traditionally prestigious Japanese red lacquer pigment, but also the most toxic and the most expensive). Bengara-urushi is somewhat more orange-shifted and somewhat more muted than the vivid orange-red of shu-lacquer — but its specific deep crimson quality (produced by the cold-process mixing of Bengal iron-oxide red pigment with the amber-tinted natural urushi sap) is the most characteristic Japanese red in the maki-e tradition. Urushi (漆 — the Japanese lacquer sap) is the processed sap of the urushi tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum — Chinese lacquer tree — a member of the sumac family — closely related to poison ivy and poison oak — producing a dermatitis-inducing sap that, once processed and hardened, creates the most durable, most water-resistant, most heat-resistant, and most insect-resistant natural surface coating known: hardened urushi is impervious to water, alcohol, acids, and alkalis; it has been found perfectly preserved on artifacts more than 9,000 years old — the oldest urushi artifacts in the world are from the Torihama shell mound site in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, dated approximately 7000-8000 BCE). Teal is the ao-urushi — the dark vivid teal of the ao-urushi (青漆 — 'green-blue lacquer') produced using verdigris (Rokushō — 緑青 — Japanese: 'green-blue patina' — copper carbonate or copper acetate, produced by exposing copper plates to acetic acid vapors — wine vinegar — and carbon dioxide, creating the characteristic blue-green patina of weathered copper). Verdigris (from French: vert-de-Gris — 'green of Greece' — the name used in Western color history since the medieval period for copper acetate — its synthesis was particularly associated with ancient Greek copper-working regions) was introduced into Japanese lacquerware as ao-urushi (green-blue lacquer) from at least the Heian period (794-1185 CE). The specific dark vivid teal of rokushō-ao-urushi: the combination of the copper-green of verdigris with the natural amber tint of the urushi sap and the darkening of the lacquer coat with carbon additions creates a characteristic deep, dark, vivid teal — neither purely green nor purely blue, but occupying the most specifically teal-hued position in the Japanese lacquerware color vocabulary. Black is the ground — the pure black of the kuro-urushi (黒漆 — 'black lacquer' — produced by adding fine iron particles or iron oxide Fe₃O₄ — magnetite — to the natural pale amber urushi sap, which reacts with the iron to produce the characteristic deep black through a chemical tanning process similar to iron gall ink production). Kuro-urushi is the most fundamental urushi color and the most important ground for all maki-e decoration — the deep, absolutely flat, absolutely reflective (mirror-quality in the finest togidashi-e) black of polished kuro-urushi provides the most dramatically contrasting background for both the gold maki-e decoration and the colored lacquer accents of the most elaborately decorated Japanese lacquerware.