A study on the painting techniques and materials of the murals in the Five Northern Provinces’ Assembly Hall, Ziyang, China

Abstract

A limited amount of analytical data is available on the techniques and materials used in the murals of the Qing dynasty in China. The Five Northern Provinces' Assembly Hall (1861-1874) is located in Wafangdian on the confluence of two rivers. It has the largest murals in Shaanxi Province. This paper presents the first comprehensive investigation of the painting techniques and materials of the murals in the Five Northern Provinces' Assembly Hall. The analytical methods include polarized light microscopy (PLM), microscopic examination on crosssections, x-ray fluorescence (XRF), x-ray diffraction (XRD), micro-Raman spectroscopy (μ-RS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy with an energy-dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDX), which have been used to examine the paint layer stratigraphy, plaster layers, the priming layer and inorganic pigments composition. The results show that the carrier was firstly prepared with two levels of coarse layers, which are made of clay, sand and rice straw applied onto the brick wall, and a fine coat layer made of lime, clay, sand and cotton follows. Then a kaolin-pigmented priming layer was painted on the fine coat, which was finally painted with red lead, red ochre, cinnabar, atacamite, malachite, botallackite, orpiment, yellow ochre, Prussian blue, smalt, azurite, lead white and flame carbons on top. The research suggests that the painting materials of the murals of the Five Northern Provinces' Assembly Hall are original and the techniques were well implemented and followed the traditional and standard way in ancient China. But a few details present strong local characteristics, such as using rice straw, cotton and kaolin as original materials which were more convenient to obtain. This study also indicates that only one red dyestuff was found, and the other colourants are all inorganic. Except Prussian blue, smalt and botallackite used in ancient mural in China were less reported, and the rest of the pigments represent traditional Chinese painting materials. In addition, the usage of the imported pigments Prussian blue and smalt proves that the geographic position of the Five Northern Provinces' Assembly Hall was of crucial importance for trade.

Comprehensive research of the painted statues of Tutang Buddha and two attendants Buddha in Jingyin Temple, Taiyuan, China

“…SEM-EDS analysis reports relatively high level of Cu. Micro-Raman study of the sample exhibited peaks at 360, 514, 825, 915, 981cm -1 , which are assigned to atacamite [28,29] . SEM-EDS analysis indicates the main element of the lime layer fragment is Ca.…”

Recent progress in instrumental techniques for architectural heritage materials

“…Being compared to the OM techniques, SEM can be utilized to analyze the morphology of inorganic and organic materials of architectural heritage (like mortars [23,58,67], binders/pigments of mural paintings [16,18,68], and sandstones [6,7,51,69,70] etc.) at a higher resolution.…”

X-ray Diffraction and SEM Investigation of Wall Paintings Found in the Roman Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, Israel

“…; Hu et al . ). Of course, depending on the tasks, other methods are also applied to study archaeological samples.…”

“…One of the advantages of the XRD method is its ability to analyse a relatively large sampling area (from 0.01 to about 1 cm 2 ) without special sample pre-treatment. For these reasons, the XRD method is widely used in the analysis of various archaeological findings and art objects: wall paintings, products of stones, metals and glass, brown wares, construction materials and so on (Bearat 1996;Mazzocchin et al 2003;Ajo et al 2004;Merkevičius et al 2007;Hein et al 2009;Manso et al 2010;Hu et al 2013). Of course, depending on the tasks, other methods are also applied to study archaeological samples.…”