On December 4, "New Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" rushed to the hot search. once again aroused the attention of netizens to this famous ancient painting.
When thousands of miles of rivers and mountains meet open Guangzhou. Sina Weibo.
This hot search is reminiscent of the grand occasion of the "Forbidden City Run" a few years ago. In recent years, people have been enthusiastic about "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", one of the top ten famous paintings in ancient China.
A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" volume (detail).
But you know what? This famous "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is a classic work of green landscapes, and the "green" in its picture is actually metal copper?
"Malachite" is not "stone".
That's right. Copper, as well as its alloys and compounds, come in many colors. Copper ore can not only extract the well-known metal copper, but it can also be used as a "pigment".
As early as 15,000 years ago, hominids began to use pigments to decorate the inner walls of their caves. The earliest pigments were all earth-based pigments, and they included earthy yellow, earthy red, and pink and white. At that time, humans also used incinerated animal fat to obtain carbon black.
Compared with earth-based pigments, mineral pigments are made from natural minerals after a series of processes such as crushing, grinding, rinsing and purifying. Its chemical properties are relatively stable, the color can remain unchanged for a long time, the hue is pure and beautiful, and it has high brightness, light resistance, temperature resistance, and moisture resistance, so it is often used in painting creation.
Mineral pigments. As an ancient civilization, China has a large number of ancient murals, painted sculptures, lacquerware, carvings and other cultural relics and artworks. A large number of natural inorganic mineral pigments are also used in these cultural relics and artworks. One of the common mineral pigments in ancient China, called "malachite", is named because its pattern is very similar to that of peacock tail feathers.
Malachite's English name is "malachite",* which originally means "a stone the color of mallows leaves" (mallows are a plant of the Malallow family with tender green leaves).
In the same way, the ancient people of our country called it "green green", "stone green" and "green langyu". Interestingly, despite the word "stone" in its name, malachite has little of the characteristics of a stone that is hard and stable. If you use it as a gemstone, it is not durable, but if you grind malachite to a very fine level and mix it with animal glue to make it easy to stick to the picture, it becomes an easy-to-use pigment.
Malachite, mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Malachite is a copper-containing secondary mineral, which is very fragile and not durable, and cannot maintain its good luster for a long time, but it is easy to use pigment when malachite is ground to a very fine and mixed with animal glue to make it easy to stick to the picture.
Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty said in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "In the stone green copper pit, it is the ancestral gas of copper." Copper gets the air of purple yang and green, and green becomes stone for a long time, which is called stone green. "Its chemical formula is Cu2(OH)2CO3, called basic copper carbonate, which is actually the same composition as patina commonly found in daily life.
Since the 70s of the 20th century, Chinese archaeologists have discovered several ancient copper mine sites. Among them, a large number of malachite fragments were found in the ancient copper mine site of Ruichang Tongling in Jiangxi Province about 3,300 years ago and the ancient copper mine site of Daye Tonglushan in Hubei Province more than 2,500 years ago.
Malachite. As a green pigment, malachite has been used for a long time. It was not until the early 19th century, when synthetic alternatives appeared, that the use of malachite gradually decreased. The famous Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang were painted after firing. The green pigment painted by the Qin figurines is malachite, which has a uniform grain texture and bright color.
More than 8,000 pieces of painted pottery have been unearthed from the Qin and Han tombs in Pingshuo, Shanxi, with rich colors, and their pigments have been determined by modern atomic emission spectroscopy, and the green pigment used in them is also malachite. As for the murals of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and the Kizil Grottoes in Xinjiang, malachite is also used, which is mainly used to depict auspicious clouds and plant leaves in the murals.
On August 21, 2018, sponsored by the Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, the "Imperial Strong Soldier - Shaanxi National Treasure Series Special Exhibition: Qin Kneeling Figurines" was unveiled.
Murals in Cave No. 224 of Kizil Caves, Xinjiang, circa 4th-8th century. Kizil Grottoes is the largest existing Buddhist grottoes in the territory of ancient Qiuzi, after thousands of years of wind and frost, although the murals have been more or less damaged, but the mineral pigments such as azurite, stone green, cinnabar, etc., after thousands of years, are still gorgeous.
The mystery of azurite
What makes people marvel at nature is that malachite is not lonely. Another common copper-bearing secondary mineral, azurite, with the chemical formula Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2—is often associated (or symbiotic) with it.
More interestingly, malachite converts to azurite when the copper oxide layer is in the right environment; If the spawning environment does not meet these conditions, the azurite will turn into malachite.
This kind of reversible mutuality is very rare in the mineral community in nature. Sometimes, in the rocks of the ore layer, there is a symbiosis of single crystals between the two, creating a fine cluster of half azurite crystals and the other half malachite crystals.
Azurite. Azurite, also known as limestone, is an alkaline copper carbonate mineral produced in the oxide zone of copper deposits. In Chinese painting of green landscapes, stone blue is the main color.
It also has a long history of use in China. The blue color in the terracotta warriors and horses of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is azurite. When viewed under a microscope, you can still see the brightly colored, fine, uniform mineral grains. Zhang Hongzhao, a modern geologist in China, recorded in the book "Ancient Mineral Records" that Shaanxi was the source of malachite and azurite in ancient times, and the terracotta warriors and horses of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang used these two mineral pigments to be described as "the first month near the water".
In 1972, the No. 1 Han Tomb of Mawangdui in the eastern suburbs of Changsha City, Hunan Province also unearthed a well-preserved and brightly colored painted silk painting. The painting depicts the sun, moon, rising dragon, and serpent-like deities, using a variety of colored pigments, including cinnabar, azurite, and malachite.
Painted silk paintings unearthed from the No. 1 Han Tomb of Mawangdui.
It is worth mentioning that the undulating mountains and the vast rivers in "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" still retain clear and gorgeous colors after nearly 1,000 years.
This was achieved not only thanks to the superb painting skills of the talented young man Wang Ximeng, but also to the stable nature of the mineral pigments used in his paintings.
A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" volume (detail).
Throughout the painting of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", the brilliant blue of the green landscape and mountain tops comes from the powder ground from the azurite ("stone blue"), and the green on the mountainside comes from malachite ("stone green").
When they coexist together, the blue and green ores complement each other, and when they come to the painting, they are like meeting old neighbors, complementing each other, just like the Song Dynasty Lu You in the poem "Tourism" "Luoqing points out the twilight mountain color, and the stone green dyes into the spring tide".
Charming copper-red glaze
In addition to being used directly as a pigment, copper can also be used as a "dye". At present, the printing and dyeing industry in the world still uses copper sulfate as a dyeing medium to improve the firmness and corrosion resistance of the color.
Speaking of which, we have to mention the "copper" in ceramics. Transitional element oxides or natural ores are added to the glaze of porcelain, and fired at a certain temperature and atmosphere, and the glaze will have a certain inherent color, which is called "color glaze".
The "copper red glaze" that ceramic collectors and enthusiasts revere is a high-temperature color glaze that uses copper oxide as a coloring agent. Copper oxide has different colors under different firing atmospheres. Normal copper red is the color under the reducing atmosphere, but the ancient kiln fire, kiln temperature, atmosphere and other control is not very precise, often will fail to fire, if the atmosphere control error, so that the kiln is oxidized atmosphere, copper oxide will appear different levels of blue-green.
Ceramic firing process.
It can be said that at high temperatures, the color of copper ions is very sensitive to temperature and atmosphere, and in order to fire a beautiful red color, it is necessary to not only master the appropriate temperature, but also control the reducing atmosphere of the kiln, otherwise it will fall short.
In the history of the development of Chinese porcelain, the Jun kiln of the Song Dynasty pioneered the firing technology of copper red glaze that could be controlled manually. From the point of view of type, Jun kiln can be classified into the celadon system, and its biggest feature is "glaze with five colors, gorgeous and exquisite".
The mystery of its "colorful" lies in the creative addition of copper, phosphorus and other elements, using copper oxide as a colorant, and successfully firing copper red glaze in a reducing atmosphere, thus breaking the pattern of blue and white porcelain dominating the world and creating a new situation of colorful porcelain glaze.
Jun kiln sky blue glaze purple and red spot fancy cup, Song, now in the Palace Museum.
In terms of technology, the color change of Jun porcelain fired in the kiln is called "kiln change", which is completely different from the decorative techniques of other porcelain. "Kiln change" does not use painting, carving and other forms of expression, but relies on strict control of the chemical composition of the tire and glaze, and through the firing process of temperature, cooling and other factors, the color and texture of the glaze coating on the surface of the porcelain are ever-changing, resulting in a natural effect of "colorful and moist like jade".
Different glazing processes will make Jun porcelain copper red glaze show different glaze colors. It is roughly divided into two categories: blue and purple, such as azure, sky blue, rose purple, begonia red, carmine, eggplant purple, cinnabar red, lilac purple, flame red and other colors.
The phenomenon of "kiln change" of Jun porcelain is the result of the comprehensive action of complex process factors. The subtle changes of each small link in the firing process will affect the kiln effect of Jun porcelain, so in the past, there were sayings of "ten kilns and nine failures" and "life is formed, death is fired".
In order to achieve the purpose of controlling the glaze color and mastering the firing, it is necessary to work hard. But on the other hand, if it is fired as desired, it is "one color into the kiln, ten thousand colors out of the kiln", "Jun porcelain is not right, and the kiln becomes unique".
Following the Jun kiln, the famous Jingde Town also successfully fired a high-temperature red glaze in the early years of the Ming Dynasty. "Sacrificial red" was originally known as bright red, because of the emperor's sacrificial use, so later generations called sacrificial red.
Sacrificial red glaze water bowl, Qing Yongzheng, now in Tianjin Museum.
The sacrificial red color is deep and stable, and it is a precious variety that is difficult to fire, and it is regarded as the best in the copper red glaze. The "peach blossom piece" burned during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty is a very valuable variety in the copper red glaze.
Peach blossom pieces are also known as peach blossom red, cowpea red, baby face, and beauty drunk. Its appearance is characterized by a partial shade of peach red, interspersed with some green moss spots; Some parts of the red are greenish, and even apple green appears, and the color is soft and elegant, moist and beautiful. Because it is very difficult to fire, there are not many heirloom products.
Cowpea red glazed chrysanthemum petal bottle, Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, now in the Palace Museum.
The green moss dots are unique to the porcelain variety "peach blossom piece", which some people consider to be a defect in the glaze, while others see it as a rare "beauty" in the "peach blossom piece". The appearance of this phenomenon is also associated with the presence of copper.
Modern research has found that the greenish area on the "peach blossom flakes" is caused by many particles containing copper sulfide, and in any case, copper as a pigment and dye does play a low-key but important role in human life.
Wu Jinyong: "Research on Painting Pigments in the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties".
Wan Jixin: A Historical Study of Western Copper Coloring Techniques
Chen Kunhe: "Scientific Research of Copper Red Glaze - Starting from Jun Kiln".
Zhang Xihuan: "Chinese Traditional Pigment Minerals", etc.
END Editor: Wang Xin Reviewer: Zhong Ling Review: Liu Hao**: National Humanities and History.
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