Cloisonné

七宝（クロワゾネ） / ancient– / Technique / Vessel and Craft Techniques

A technique of enamelling in which thin metal strips are laid on a metal or porcelain ground to form chambers, and vitreous enamel paste is packed into each chamber. The strips survive the firing as visible metal lines, so every area of colour stays closed inside a line. Getty files it under processes rather than styles.

Every area of colour is fenced by a thin metal line, and the lines divide the whole design without a break / No two colours bleed into each other / Only the lines give back the light of metal rather than of glass / The ground is metal or porcelain, so the design wraps a curved vessel instead of sitting on a flat panel

Cloisonné — Cloisonné panel with dragons, Ming dynasty, late 16th–early 17th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Cloisonné panel with dragons, Ming dynasty, late 16th–early 17th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 ／ Namikawa Yasuyuki, cloisonné vase with butterflies and chrysanthemums, c. 1900–1910 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 ／ Process samples of the cloisonné technique, 19th century, Japan, Los Angeles County Museum of Art — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Cloisonné — Namikawa Yasuyuki, cloisonné vase with butterflies and chrysanthemums, c. 1900–1910 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Cloisonné panel with dragons, Ming dynasty, late 16th–early 17th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 ／ Namikawa Yasuyuki, cloisonné vase with butterflies and chrysanthemums, c. 1900–1910 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 ／ Process samples of the cloisonné technique, 19th century, Japan, Los Angeles County Museum of Art — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Dictionary entry

Best used for: Designing a multicolour version of a crest or a logo where colours are separated rather than blended · Building a diagram or a map in which the outline itself carries the ornament
Type: Enclose letters the way the design encloses colour. Avoid typefaces too fine to survive the width of the wire.
Composition: Divide the entire field into closed cells, leaving no area outside a cell. The smallest cell is set by the width the line can hold.
Material: Fence with metal lines and fill each cell with a glassy colour. Keep the lines the colour of metal and never let one area of colour cross a line.
Caution: Drawing the lines as decoration without actually closing the cells lets colour escape and reduces the technique to a mere outline.
Further study: how the metal strips used as partitions are stood up and fixed to the ground / why firing has to be repeated, since the enamel sinks each time / which regions have used the names jingtailan and shippo

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