Kintsugi vs Maki-e
金継ぎ / 蒔絵
Gold lines run over a black lacquer ground and gold powder lifts on the surface of the vessel in both.
How to tell them apart. The kintsugi line follows the break and crosses the original pattern without regard for it. Maki-e draws the flower or the bird itself in gold.
Kintsugi
%20-%20Flickr%20-%20dalbera.png)
Kintsugi is the Japanese craft of repairing broken ceramics with urushi lacquer and gold or silver, so the mend is shown rather than hidden. The Getty vocabulary files it under repairing, as a restorative process rather than a style. The break decides where the metal lines run, so one vessel can never produce the same drawing twice.
Maki-e
%2C%20Edo%20period%2C%2019th%20century%2C%20insect%20cage%20design%20in%20maki-e%20lacquer%20-%20Tokyo%20National%20Museum%20-%20DSC05156.JPG)
A family of Japanese decorating techniques in which powdered gold, silver or coloured pigment is sprinkled onto lacquer while it is still damp. The name means sprinkled picture, and by the Heian period these techniques had become the dominant way of decorating Japanese lacquerware. Tone is built from how coarse the powder is and how densely it falls, not from mixing colour.
| Kintsugi | Maki-e | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 15th century– | Heian period– |
| Family | Vessel and Craft Techniques | Vessel and Craft Techniques |
| Kind | Technique | Technique |
| Cues | Thin gold or silver lines that follow the break exactly / Line width that varies, widening into filled areas where a chip was lost / A trace of dark lacquer showing at the edge of the metal / Metal lines crossing the vessel's original painted decoration without regard for it | Gold imagery that appears to sit below the surface of a black lacquer ground / The same gold reading as visible grain where the powder is coarse and as a smooth sheet where it is fine / Motif edges formed by a change in powder density rather than by a drawn outline / Flat passages of gold from applied kirikane foil set among the sprinkled areas |
| Best used for | Building a display where broken prototypes or stock are shown mended instead of discarded · Leaving a visible record of repair or revision on a product or a screen | Briefing a workshop for gold decoration on a black lacquer ground, on ware or on objects such as pens · Designing a gold treatment whose tonal range comes from grain size instead of a flat colour fill |
| Type | Add no lettering, and let the metal lines share the surface with whatever marks the vessel already carries. | If text is needed, write it in the same powder as the ornament and keep the strokes light enough to sit inside the black. Never outline it. |
| Composition | The break dictates the lines, so fit the fragments first and then decide how much metal each seam takes. | Leave most of the black ground open and let the motif run toward one side of the object. Always reserve a plain area for light to travel across. |
| Material | Urushi lacquer joins and hardens the pieces, then gold or silver powder is laid over the seam. | Lay the lacquer and sprinkle gold, silver or coloured powder before it dries. Build light and dark from grain size and density, and add kirikane foil where a flat sheet of gold is wanted. |
| Caution | Designing the gold lines before anything breaks places them where no stress runs, and the piece looks patterned rather than mended. | Filling the gold as one flat area discards the technique itself, since in maki-e the tonal range comes from how coarse the powder is and how densely it lands. |