Fish white, jade color, moon white, dark blue, royal blue, stone blue, red blue
——Traditional Chinese color blue system
Bright yellow, golden yellow, apricot yellow, persimmon yellow, wheat yellow, sunflower yellow, autumn fragrance
——The traditional Chinese color yellow system
Pine green, official green, water green, sand green, bean green, melon peel green
——Traditional Chinese color green system
Lotus, deep lotus, iron purple, true purple, purple red, green lotus
——Traditional Chinese color purple system
Chinese romance, from this "Qianlong Chromatography" that sees words like color, can be perceived one or two.
In the Qianlong period, the dyeing of people's clothes all came from the flowers and grasses around them, at that time there was no variety of chemical dyes, and the dyeing was all based on natural plants, but it was still colorful and brilliant.
If the Qianlong period is the most brilliant moment of color in ancient China, then what kind of color was China at that time when it goes back to the Han and Tang Dynasties and even the Qin Dynasty?
When the impression of the gray and slightly earthy color of the Loess Plateau Qin figurines with the topic of "terracotta warriors color matching is too amazing" on the hot search, when "there is a purple called Chinese purple" to arouse people's curiosity, perhaps it is time to talk about this underground color world you have never seen before, to talk about how Chinese color is a "stunning color".
01
At the foot of Mount Li in the Lintong district of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, Qin Shi Huang, the first monarch on the mainland to claim the title of emperor, slept for more than 2,200 years under the towering fiefdom.
48 years ago, an ordinary well drilling by three farmers accidentally opened the loess that had been sealed for more than 2,000 years, and a mysterious underground army that shocked the world reappeared in the world.
This Yangyang legion from the Qin Dynasty, the Terracotta Warriors, "is like a crossbow, and the knots are like a machine", and it seems that after only one order, it will "if the water is piled up in the open of a thousand people", surging and surging and destroying those who touch it.
They, with thousands of faces, show the style of a big country.
They are imposing, freshly dressed and angry.
The mysterious underground army that shocked the world reappeared in the world. Photo: Qin Shi Huang Emperor Mausoleum Museum
It is literally "freshly dressed and angry horse".
A warm knowledge that may not be known to many people: the Qin Terracotta Warriors, which look at the "gray fluttering" in the past, are not only colored when they are built, but also a strong and bright contrast school: vermilion, purple, pink, pink, pink, pink, orange, black, white, ochre... The neat military formation is colorful and vivid, commonly known as the "flower team".
However, due to the long time, the middle has experienced fire, flash floods, natural erosion and other reasons, more than 95% of the terracotta paints have fallen off, and most of the rest have been violently contracted, curled and fallen off in just a few minutes due to changes in ambient temperature and dry humidity after excavation, which eventually led to the original colorful Qin figurines appearing as gray-brown as we see today.
Colorful Qin figurines. Photo: Shanxi Satellite TV
In 1988, the academic report of the first large-scale excavation of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses, the "Report on the Excavation of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit No. 1 pit in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Shi Huang Emperor (1974-1984)", was published, which also mentioned the fact that the Terracotta Warriors and Horses were painted in many places.
Not only that, Qin figurine researchers also according to the color residue of the excavated pottery figurines, the color of the clothing of different classes of soldiers, different individuals of the samurai figurines after a detailed study found: the Qin army is divided into infantry, vehicle soldiers, cavalry three major classes of soldiers, their armor issued by the government uniformly, the same class, the same status of the armor worn by the shape and color is more consistent (such as red armor belt, brown armor pieces), but the armor inside the jacket, bottom and leggings, collar, etc. are prepared by the soldiers themselves, so the colors are different from each other, colorful.
Archaeologists at the excavation site. Photo: Qin Shi Huang Emperor Mausoleum Museum
Interestingly, the most popular color for the Qin Dynasty army at that time was also green. The researchers once surveyed 177 pottery figurines, of which 42.6% of them had green coats. 425 pottery figurines were surveyed, of which 52.5% had green underwear. In addition, about half of the people who choose green, such as leg guards, bib collars, and cuffs, are basically about half.
On September 10, 1999, a figurine with a green face was also found in the Terracotta Warriors No. 2 pit. The figurine is kneeling, with black hair, beard, and pupils, but the face is painted green. There is no convincing answer as to why his face is different, but the scarce green-faced figurines, like the copper galloping carriages, are too precious and have now become cultural relics banned from being exhibited abroad.
Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Green Face Figurine Image: Arterial Shadow
In addition to green (mainly pink green), vermilion, pink purple, sky blue these colors accounted for a large proportion, was the main color of clothing at that time. In addition, the Qin people pay attention to the color matching of the upper and lower clothes, cuffs and necklines. such as a green top, underwear sky blue or pink purple or red pants; Red tops, dark blue or light green pants underneath; Long green coat with scarlet collar and cuffs; Long red coat with green or pink or sky blue edges. This bold contrast makes the Qin figurines appear bright, warm and full of vitality.
On May 18, 2018, Xi'an, the restoration of the color of the Terracotta Warriors helped the public to more intuitively feel the original charm of the Terracotta Warriors. Image according to Visual China
02
Among these colorful colors, there is one color that has to be mentioned, that is, the "Chinese purple" (BaCuSi2O6, mineralogical name copper barium silicate) that has attracted the attention of the world.
Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Purple Robe Imperial Hand Figurine Image: Arterial Shadow
In traditional Chinese color aesthetics, purple represents nobility and is the color of heaven. Purple Dome and Purple Void are synonymous with the sky, and the clouds and qi in the sky are called Purple Cloud and Purple Qi respectively, and Zi Chen, Purple Forbidden, and Ziwei are regarded as emperors or thrones. The first recorded appearance of popular colors in Chinese history was because the Duke of Qi Huan of the State of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period was very fond of wearing purple clothes, which led to the court of the State of Qi, the capital of the State of Qi, and even the entire border of the State of Qi liked to wear purple, and even this trend swept the State of Lu. In the seventeenth year of the Duke of Lu'ai, Dr. Lu Guo wore a "purple fox fur".
Most of the ways the ancients obtained pigments were by grinding and mashing minerals, soil or plants. For example Chinese loved red, and our ancestors extracted red from cinnabar (the mineralogical name Tatsusha) as a pigment very early. The purple silk that Qi Huangong likes to wear, according to research, is dyed by extracting the secretions of animal bone snails, and is called "shell purple". Bone snail dyeing, the cost is extremely high, Japanese scholar Yoshioka Yukio analysis believes that every 1 gram of dye needs to consume about 2,000 dyed sea shells, so rare, making purple an extremely luxurious color, the price of a purple silk in qi Huan Gong is higher than five horses of plain silk. Even in the Tang Dynasty, only princes and officials with more than three pins could use purple.
"The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" He Zhizheng is wearing a purple robe
However, the "Chinese purple" found by researchers in the Terracotta Warriors of Qin Shi Huang is different from the purple colored by comfrey or bone snail, which does not exist in nature, but is mixed by stone green, stone green, barite and quartz, and reacted at a high temperature of more than one thousand degrees Celsius, that is, it is a synthetic pigment.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Elizabeth Fitzhu and others of the Freer Institute in the United States first analyzed blue and purple copper barium silicate from Han Dynasty pottery, bronze paintings and pigments, and named it "Chinese Purple" and "Chinese Blue" (also known as "Han Purple" and "Han Blue"). Since then, with the in-depth study of the terracotta warriors and horses of Qin Shi Huang, archaeologists have also found a large number of "Chinese purple" in the Qin figurines.
"Chinese purple" from the microscopic perspective. Photo: Qin Shi Huang Emperor Mausoleum Museum
Non-natural pigments were rare in ancient times, especially blue-purple, which is rare, and so far, only three artificial blue-violets have been confirmed to appear before industrial societies, namely Egyptian blue, Mayan blue and Chinese purple. Different from the "Egyptian blue" composed of copper calcium silicate, the composition of "Chinese purple" is copper barium silicate, which not only needs to be synthesized artificially, but also due to its unstable nature, the requirements for material ratio and temperature control in the synthesis process are very high.
There is a theory that "Chinese purple" may have been a by-product of the Taoist alchemy and jade beads (glass) obtained by accident, and because of its rarity, it was ordered by the emperor to be used on important or special utensils, showing supreme imperial power. In any case, as Xia Yin of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Museum Research Institute said, "More than two thousand years ago, the Qin people were able to synthesize pigments through minerals, which is very remarkable, enough to explain the development of Qin Dynasty technology." ”
The "Chinese purple" on the Qin figurines is clearly visible. Photo: Qin Shi Huang Emperor Mausoleum Museum
Unfortunately, this mysterious and rare color has not survived. Through the analysis of more than 1,000 samples of painted cultural relics in 11 provinces and regions across the country, Xia Yin found that the use of "Chinese purple" expanded with the development footprint of the Qin people, and gradually disappeared with the demise of the Qin, only existing in the more than 1,000 years from the Western Zhou To the Two Han Dynasties. For its disappearance, Xia Yin speculated that the preparation technology of this pigment may only be in the hands of high-level state organs, and with the two Han Dynasties, China entered a long period of division and division, and this advanced preparation process was lost.
03
The Terracotta Warriors represent the painting process of the Qin Dynasty is quite mature, and the craftsmen have realized the configuration of a variety of complex colors according to the color needs of different parts of the figurines and through the mutual participation of various colors of pigments. The study of painted terracotta warriors has also enriched our understanding of traditional Chinese colors.
For example, the popular saying is "Xia Dynasty Shanghei, Shangbai Shangbai, Zhou Dynasty Shangchi, Qin Dynasty Shanghei", and the "History of Qin Shi Huang Benji" also records that after Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms, black was used as the most honorable color, and "the clothes and banners were black". But the costumes of the Terracotta Warriors are colorful. Why?
In film and television dramas, the clothes of the King of Qin are mainly black
In this regard, yuan Zhongyi, a terracotta expert who has dealt with the terracotta warriors all his life, explained that the color of the Qin costumes is divided into fashion colors and popular colors. Fashion color is a revered color, with a strong political color, the so-called "Qin people are still black", refers to the major national events, the monarch and the royal palace nobles wear dressed in black. However, popular colors are the colors worn by the public, and it can be seen that other classes in the Qin Kingdom still accept bright colors, and they do not all wear black.
As for the so-called "Qin Dynasty Shanghei", this is actually derived from the Yin and Yang Five Elements theory that began in the Xia Dynasty. In the Zhou Dynasty, a color system corresponding to clothing and etiquette began to be established. During the Warring States period, the concept of positive color appeared, which were blue, black, red, yellow and white. The Eastern Han Dynasty scholar Zheng Xuan mentioned in his commentary on the Zhou Li that there is a bird called "Xia Di", the feathers on the body are rich in color, "the five colors are prepared into chapters", researchers believe that the so-called Xia Di is "pheasant", the pre-Qin people are using the feathers of this bird as the standard of five colors.
A brown-tailed rainbow pheasant stands particularly beautiful in the snow. Image according to Visual China
The five positive colors, and later the five colors, constitute the basic color spectrum of traditional Chinese colors.
For example, the red color of the five colors, that is, red, has always been regarded as an important color in China. Primitive humans worshipped the sun and revered red, and paleolithic hilltop cavemen had used tethers of hematite-dyed stone beads. From the vermilion lacquer wooden bowl excavated from the Yuyao Hemudu site in Zhejiang Province to the red color of the Ming and Qing dynasties, vermilion has become one of the representative colors of lacquerware, highlighting the feeling of warm prosperity, gorgeous and rich.
Lacquerware excavated from the Tianhui Laoguanshan Han Tomb Group. Photograph: Bao Tailiang
Qing is between green and blue, and it is recorded in the Xunzi Persuasion: "Qing, taken from blue, and blue from blue." "Green is the color of plants and trees, and in the early spring, everything "returns to green" and spits green, showing a vibrant scene and a symbol of life. Whether it is the qingju beauty of the Ru kiln azure glaze sung by "azure and other smoke and rain", or the elegant artistic conception of the Song Dynasty green landscape painting presented in "Only This Green", the poetic meaning of traditional Chinese aesthetics can be said to be vivid in it.
Map of a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains (Partial)
As one of the first peoples in the world to know how to use color, in ancient Chinese society, from the communication with the gods, the change of dynasties, the management of society, to the fate of individuals and aesthetic preferences, all of them are not subject to color. In turn, starting from Chinese colors, it can also be traced back to Chinese unique expression of emotion, as well as the ancient wisdom that is unique in the Oriental aesthetic that has been passed down for thousands of years.
Back to the day when the gate of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum was opened, the moment the earth was blown away, those pink faces, brown armor, red armor belts, or green, or red, or purple clothes... The gorgeous colors inject soul into the terracotta warriors, and you can imagine how shocking and stunning people are when they first see them.
The red color on the top of the Qin figurines' heads is still bright through the millennium. Image: Arterial shadow
Red Star News reporter Zeng Qi Editor Zeng Qi
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