Urushi-e

It can also refer to pictures using lacquer as a paint on three-dimensional lacquered objects; and paintings using actual lacquer on paper or occasionally silk. In Japanese woodblock printing, urushi-e generally refers to a hand-painted technique. Instead of printing with urushi (natural lacquer) it was painted on by hand. This meant that urushi-e pictures could be more colorful than most block prints of the time. Five colors were available when the technique was first developed; brown, yellow, green, red, and black. Urushi-e was sometimes used as a term to describe all hand-painted woodblock prints in Japan, not only those painted with lacquer, however, only urushi-e used iro-urushi, meaning colored lacquer, made from mixing clear lacquer and one of the five pigments. Artists such as Nishimura Shigenaga c. 1680s–1750 were also known to use black ink thickened with hide glue to attain a lacquer-like effect on some on his prints. In addition to colored lacquer, gold was sometimes applied to urushi-e works in the form of gold leaf and powders.