Daily lacquerware packaging in Mawangdui Han Tomb

In the early 1970s, a large number of exquisite cultural relics were unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb. Among them, the enamel, boxes, and plates in daily lacquerware reflect the concept of lacquerware craftsmen who solved the problem of packaging design more than 2,000 years ago. method. To sum up, from the point of view of packaging, these lacquerware are mainly divided into two categories: grouping, serialized packaging, and collective packaging.

First, composition, serialized packaging

In the daily lacquerware unearthed at the Mawangdui Han Tomb, a lacquer ware containing cosmetics, spices and other items was designed using a combination of a double-layer structure and multiple sub-boxes, which is a typical combination and serialized package design. Among the 15 lacquer wares at Mawangdui No. 3 Tomb, there are 5 double lacquer lacquer boxes, and the double tier 9 caskets in Tomb No. 1 (Fig. 1) is a combination and serialized package design. The concentrated expression of ideas. The double-layer nine-puppet device consists of two layers, the upper and lower layers, and a total of three parts. On the upper layer, gloves, scarves and other items are placed. On the lower level, there are nine small boxes containing white powder, oil paint, rouge and other cosmetics and puffs, in addition to wigs, combs, and quilts. The upper lacquerware has a "convex" shape. The upper part is fitted with the outer cover. The lower part is fitted with the lower body. The height of the three parts after fitting is 20.8 cm. The thickness of the bottom lacquer is 5 In centimeters, he cut 9 deep 3 cm grooves and placed 9 oval, round, rectangular and horseshoe shaped boxes. The 9 small boxes are of different sizes and shapes and are very subtly suitable for the bottom circle. The shape of the big box is among [3]. This unique design perfectly handles the combination of sub-boxes of different sizes and shapes. The overall and local consistency of the lacquer box achieves the rationality of the function and originality of the form.

Like the container's modeling and structural design, this double-layered nine-pronged design embodies the essence of serialized packaging design in color design and decoration design. In terms of color design, no matter whether it is a box or nine small boxes, the watch is made of 2 dark brown primers, and then gold foil is applied on the paint. The gold foil is uniformly applied gold, white, and red, and the colors are gorgeous; In terms of design, the smooth lines of moiré patterns are used in a unified manner, which has extremely high paintwork skills. This harmony in color and ornamentation makes this combined, serialized packaging highly visual.

Second, the collection of packaging

As a kind of multi-packaging method, the collective packing mainly refers to the complete package of multiple products of the same kind. Collective packaging design usually makes full use of the morphological characteristics of the product itself as the contents of the packaging container structure design, modeling design, through the separation and combination of the internal space of the container, to achieve the purpose of multi-packaging [4].

The cup box 3 (Figure 3) unearthed from Tomb No. 1 of Mawangdui is a collection of works. This cup-shaped box has an elliptical shape and is formed by snapping the upper cover and the body into two parts. 7 cups of ear cups of the same size are included in the cup box, 6 of which are snap-locked, and the two ears of the reverse cup are triangular in cross-section, and are fitted with 6 other ear cups stacked in a straight line. Ingenious; moreover, the entire interior design is very compact, stable, and integrated with the external container form.

In modern packaging design, there is no lack of excellent collection packaging design (Figure 4). However, there are also a lot of unreasonable over-packaging in the market. This kind of packaging design mainly has the following defects: not only the external form of the container is mediocre, but also the internal structure of the container is loose, and the form of the contents is not thoroughly considered, so that the volume of the packaging container does not coincide with the actual size of the packaged object. . This kind of design not only wastes material resources, but also creates different levels of fraud for consumers. With a cup box as an example of a collection package, it is worthy of reference for today's packaging design practitioners.

Third, the design features

These daily lacquerware mainly have the following design features:

First, the overall beauty of utensils. Whether it is lacquer enamel or ear cup holder, no matter what form it takes, its design always focuses on the organic unity of the pod box and the pod box, and part and the whole. It fully reflects the coordination and the whole in terms of utensil shape, color and decoration. sense.

Second, the container structure is beautiful. These lacquer wares are unique in the structural design of the containers. Lacquerware craftsmen have fully utilized the morphological characteristics of the interior parts themselves and painstakingly managed the space layout inside the containers and obtained the sensationalistic effect.

Third, in these lacquerware as daily necessities, the designer has fully considered the practical functions of the utensils, designed from the inside out so that the external forms of the utensils and their functions are united. This also reflects ancient China in one aspect. The design pursues the idea of ​​preparing for use.

The lacquerware for daily use at the Mawangdui Han Tomb has an artistic level that is unattainable to future generations and has a high design value and cultural value. Through the analysis of typical artifacts with packaging forms and several comparisons with modern packaging design, it is not difficult to see the similarity and inheritance relationship between the two in the design concept. Conducting systematic and in-depth research on them and extracting nutrition from them will provide insightful ideas and methods for today's packaging design to the future.

Note: 1 奁: refers to the ancient woman's dress box.

2 髹: Apply the paint on the utensil

3 cups: A set of boxes made of drinking ear cups.

—— Hunan University, Huang Yanan, He Renke

Shanghai Packaging