SÆ¡n mài is a costly form of lacquer painting in Vietnam. Here’s what makes these paintings so expensive

  • Date: 22-Feb-2021
  • Source: Business Insider
  • Sector:Industrial
  • Country:Middle East
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SÆ¡n mài is a costly form of lacquer painting in Vietnam. Here’s what makes these paintings so expensive

Following is a transcript of the video.Narrator: Sơn mài is a traditional Vietnamese form of lacquer painting created using a toxic lacquer harvested from one region of the country. It requires months of application and sanding back layers of paint to build up the image. Last year, a sơn mài painting sold at auction for $972,000. So, what makes these paintings so special? And why are they so expensive?

Phạm Chính Trung: You never truly know what's underneath a lacquer painting as you are completing it. And so, the process involves the artists sanding the work into shape, slowly revealing the colors, giving the artist a sense of anticipation as he is crossing the finishing line, and artists love that feeling.

Narrator: Phạm Chính Trung has dedicated almost 50 years to mastering sơn mài and knows how equally tiring and rewarding the craft can be. It is an art form of incredible value in Vietnamese culture, for both the time and skill it requires and the exclusive natural materials needed to make it. The process of making lacquer paint begins in the forests of Vietnam, where planters collect resin from a toxic wax tree native to Southeast Asia called the Rhus succedanea.