About Vietnamese Sơn Mài Lacquer关于 Vietnamese Sơn Mài Lacquer
Sơn mài — "polish-grind lacquer" — is the Vietnamese fine-art lacquer painting tradition that fused ancient Asian lacquer craft with French oil-painting principles in 1920s Hanoi. Painters built up ten to thirty layers of sap-lacquer ground on wooden panels, inlaid crushed eggshell, gold-leaf, silver-leaf, mother-of-pearl, and cinnabar, then polished the surface back with charcoal-water to reveal stratified luminosity beneath glass-smooth depth.
The visual canon says: deep red-black "cánh gián" ground, gold-leaf moon and clouds, eggshell-mosaic figures, mother-of-pearl water-glints, cinnabar accents. The result glows from within — twenty layers polished smooth as a mirror, ornate ancestral craft framed by modernist composition.
漆磨（Sơn mài，"打磨漆画"）是1920年代河内诞生的越南漆画传统：印度支那美术学院的画家们把东亚千年漆艺嫁接到法国油画之上，在木板上层层堆叠十到三十层生漆，再嵌入碎蛋壳、金箔、银箔、螺钿与朱砂，最后用炭粉水反复研磨，让深层的光从底下慢慢透出来。
这套视觉语言里只有几样东西：蟑螂翼般深沉的红黑漆底、悬在画面顶端的金箔月与云、用碎蛋壳拼成的人物肌肤、点点闪烁的螺钿水波、一抹朱砂红。表面平滑如镜，却深得像往井里看——古老工艺与现代构图在同一块漆板上呼吸，是越南最骄傲的国家级画种。
The Vietnamese Sơn Mài Lacquer design system traces back to Ancient temple-lacquer roots (1c CE+); 20c easel-painting transformation 1925–1945 at École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, Hanoi; postwar continuation as Vietnamese national art form Vietnam — Hanoi (École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine + post-1945 Fine Arts Association studios), Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. Key figures behind it include Nguyễn Gia Trí, Nguyễn Sáng, Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm, and Victor Tardieu. It belongs to the Indochinese modern-art synthesis, Asian lacquer-painting tradition, and Vietnamese national-modernism movements.
Vietnamese Sơn Mài Lacquer 这套设计系统溯源至 Ancient temple-lacquer roots (1c CE+); 20c easel-painting transformation 1925–1945 at École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, Hanoi; postwar continuation as Vietnamese national art form 年的越南 — 河内（印度支那美术学院与战后越南美术协会画室）、西贡/胡志明市。代表人物包括 Nguyễn Gia Trí、Nguyễn Sáng、Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm、Victor Tardieu。所属流派：Indochinese modern-art synthesis、Asian lacquer-painting tradition、Vietnamese national-modernism。