Chinese painting colors: History and reality

Seven Chinese paintings from the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., were examined to determine the pigments used in their making. The paintings examined were a Yuan dynasty handscroll dated to 1347, a Ming dynasty handscroll, and five late Qing dynasty ancestor portraits. Examination of the paintings showed a complex use of pigments to produce a wide variety of colors and shades of color. In contrast to Japanese paintings, the study and identification of pigments on Chinese paintings has been much more limited. This study indicates that Chinese painters typically used lead white rather than the calcium carbonate white pigments favored by Japanese painters. Also, the five Qing dynasty portraits studied were done using ultramarine, emerald green, and a variety of arsenic sulfides. pigments rarely found in Japanese paintings. All of the paintings showed an intimate knowledge of the working properties of the pigments used, and a variety of pigment mixtures was employed to create the desired effects. This paper also compares the pigments identified on the seven paintings examined with the information recorded in contemporary literature and modern research results on pigment usage in China.