The Way Back 8 and The Way Back 9 by Xuan Anh Vu are the only two incised lacquer paintings in the Four Seasons collection. The incised lacquer technique is done on lacquered wooden panels. An incised lacquer painting consists of the original dark background and the incised parts with strokes or shapes about 1-2 mm deep. The incised parts are then filled with colours, sometimes gold or silver. The colours used in The Way Back 8 and The Way Back 9 are watercolours. Along with lacquer, incised lacquer has always been regarded as characteristic traditional East Asian material. Incised lacquer in Vietnam is said to have flourished between 1945 and 1995 but has now more and more fallen into oblivion. According to Xuan Anh, “Young painters nowadays rarely do incised lacquer, perhaps because of many painstaking and elaborate steps, including sketching the small version, then the big version, transferring the outlines on tracing papers, marking on the panel, incising, and finally colouring.”