Before the Qin Dynasty, Chinese painting techniques were mainly based on ink line outlining and color flat painting.
However, the biggest feature of the flat painting method is that there is no three-dimensional sense.
The hook line baking dyeing method divides the color of the picture into thick and light levels, and Han Gan's "Illuminating the Night White" is to render the shadow part with light ink after using the line outline, and the three-dimensional sense of the horse comes out.
▲ Han Gan's "Illumination of the Night"
The paintings of the Tang Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty were mainly made of silk as paper, and the smooth surface of silk was not easy to ink, and it was not easy to absorb water.
Therefore, before painting, it is necessary to "alum silk", that is, to brush a layer of alum on the silk, so that the pigment can be attached to the silk, and because the mineral pigment is not sticky, it is necessary to use glue to blend.
Ancient painters believed that the color should be thin, but to show a sense of thickness, they would often use thinner colors to color over and over again, glue and alum many times, and finally superimpose the effect of thickness.
According to the needs, this rendering process will be repeated seven or eight times or even a dozen times, so it is called "three alum and nine dyes".
The alum of three alum and nine dyes is to coat the silk (paper) with alum, dye, and color.
After rice paper was widely used and gradually replaced on silk painting, the baking and dyeing method also encountered a problem that needed to be greatly improved - repeated rendering would make the surface of the paper brush, especially the face of the character, which greatly affected the beauty of the picture.
The "alum paper" technique solves this problem very well.
Alum paper is to add alum to rice paper and make rice paper "cooked", so that the water absorption of rice paper is not so strong.
After each dyeing two or three times, it is necessary to add some glue alum water, so that the color can be bright, but also the base color that has been dyed can be coated with a protective film to fix the base color.
In brush strokes, the most time-consuming thing is rendering.
The murals of the Northern Qi era have been divided into labor, and the reason is that the color can only be applied a second time after drying once, and this requires time to dry naturally.
The same goes for silk and paper!
▲ Lin Chun "Loquat Mountain Bird Diagram"
▲ Song Huizong's "Furong Jinji Diagram"
▲ Qian Xuan "Gua Jia Tu"
▲ Yu Zhigong pen flowers and birds
The colors of ancient paintings are very beautiful, on the one hand, it is the credit of mineral pigments, on the other hand, because the ancients used fresh glue and alum when modulating colors.
The "three alum and nine dyes" in the painting is the meaning of repeated rendering and dyeing, not only the number of dyes, but more importantly, the dyeing process is more, and the dyeing method is exquisite.
Three alum and nine dyes are not a fixed painting procedure and formula, the number of dyes depends on the needs of the work, and the three alum and nine dyes are not limited to the brush strokes.
▲ Yun Shouping's "Five-Color Peony Map"
▲ Shen Quan's "Zhi Shou Nian Nian"
▲ Chen Zhifo,"Flowers in the Snow Are More Prosperous"
▲ Jiang Hanting's "Golden Rooster Exorcism Diagram"
▲ Yu Fei proposed song huizong penmanship
After the Southern Song Dynasty, freehand painting gradually became the mainstream of Chinese painting, more and more painters used Sheng Xuan painting, fewer and fewer painters painted with brush strokes, and the three alum and nine dyes were no longer the program that painters had to abide by.
However, as an important craft of Gongbi painting, three alum and nine dyes have always been the basic rules that traditional Gongbi painting needs to follow.
Three alum and nine dyes are also often extended to the artistic effect of Chinese painting "China Resources And Thick".
Although freehand painting should be "China Resources and Thick" and does not need the technique of "three alum and nine dyes", the accumulation of ink and color is the same as the pattern of "three alum and nine dyes".
▲ Ren Bonian 'Heron Map》
▲ Zhao Shaoang flowers and birds
The proportion of glue alum water is flexibly mastered according to the actual situation, usually six glues and four alum in spring and summer, eight glues and two alum in winter, and three glues and seven alum in autumn.