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The Redecoration History of a Chinese Polychromed Guanyin Attributed to the 11th–12th Century C.E. as Deduced from Stratigraphic Microanalysis
- John Twilley, Kathleen M. Garland
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- Journal:
- MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive / Volume 1319 / 2011
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 April 2011, mrsf10-1319-ww04-07
- Print publication:
- 2011
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- Article
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The decorative polychrome history of a remarkable depiction of the “Guanyin of the Southern Sea” dating to the 11th-12th centuries C.E. (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, #34-10) has been studied by integrating the results of Scanning Electron Microscopy with Elemental Analysis by X-ray Spectrometry, Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Polarized Light Microscopy. This 2.4m by 1.65m sculpture, carved almost entirely from a single Populus tree, has been attributed to Northern China and offers important points of comparison to previously studied works in the Victoria and Albert Museum and Rijksmuseum, with which it differs in certain important respects. Evidence for the original polychrome color scheme and those of at least three successive historical redecorations (two of which have been assigned ages by radiocarbon dating of paper interlayers) was found throughout the figure. By integrating the different forms of information obtainable from the methods cited above, it was possible to more fully describe complex pigment mixtures used to render different parts of the draperies. Both fracture sections and prepared cross sections serve different functions in revealing aspects of the paint preparation and its subsequent alteration. The differentiation of polymorphs of copper trihydroxychloride, made possible by Raman spectroscopy, allowed us to identify manmade botallackite with distinctive particle morphology as an important pigment of the intermediate period decorations, while elemental analysis of tin oxide traces showed that manmade atacamite used in other colors was derived from corroded bronze. Elemental analysis allowed distinctions to be made in the shade of gold leaf applied in different periods from cross sections without divesting the sculpture of later paint applications. The cross sections also provided evidence for the existence of flat gold line-work in areas subsequently redecorated with raised gilt brocades. Several combinations of the organic pigment indigo and inorganic paint constituents such as lead white, azurite, malachite and quartz reveal the means of adjusting shade and optical effects in closely-related paint applications. The results obtained by employing complementary techniques of analysis have served to greatly expand our understanding of the original use of polychrome decoration in the late Liao or Jin periods and its subsequent evolution, while alerting us to important Chinese innovations in the manufacure of pigments.
Looking Backward, Looking Forward: MLA Members Speak
- April Alliston, Elizabeth Ammons, Jean Arnold, Nina Baym, Sandra L. Beckett, Peter G. Beidler, Roger A. Berger, Sandra Bermann, J.J. Wilson, Troy Boone, Alison Booth, Wayne C. Booth, James Phelan, Marie Borroff, Ihab Hassan, Ulrich Weisstein, Zack Bowen, Jill Campbell, Dan Campion, Jay Caplan, Maurice Charney, Beverly Lyon Clark, Robert A. Colby, Thomas C. Coleman III, Nicole Cooley, Richard Dellamora, Morris Dickstein, Terrell Dixon, Emory Elliott, Caryl Emerson, Ann W. Engar, Lars Engle, Kai Hammermeister, N. N. Feltes, Mary Anne Ferguson, Annie Finch, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Jerry Aline Flieger, Norman Friedman, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Sandra M. Gilbert, Laurie Grobman, George Guida, Liselotte Gumpel, R. K. Gupta, Florence Howe, Cathy L. Jrade, Richard A. Kaye, Calhoun Winton, Murray Krieger, Robert Langbaum, Richard A. Lanham, Marilee Lindemann, Paul Michael Lützeler, Thomas J. Lynn, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Michelle A. Massé, Irving Massey, Georges May, Christian W. Hallstein, Gita May, Lucy McDiarmid, Ellen Messer-Davidow, Koritha Mitchell, Robin Smiles, Kenyatta Albeny, George Monteiro, Joel Myerson, Alan Nadel, Ashton Nichols, Jeffrey Nishimura, Neal Oxenhandler, David Palumbo-Liu, Vincent P. Pecora, David Porter, Nancy Potter, Ronald C. Rosbottom, Elias L. Rivers, Gerhard F. Strasser, J. L. Styan, Marianna De Marco Torgovnick, Gary Totten, David van Leer, Asha Varadharajan, Orrin N. C. Wang, Sharon Willis, Louise E. Wright, Donald A. Yates, Takayuki Yokota-Murakami, Richard E. Zeikowitz, Angelika Bammer, Dale Bauer, Karl Beckson, Betsy A. Bowen, Stacey Donohue, Sheila Emerson, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Jay L. Halio, Karl Kroeber, Terence Hawkes, William B. Hunter, Mary Jambus, Willard F. King, Nancy K. Miller, Jody Norton, Ann Pellegrini, S. P. Rosenbaum, Lorie Roth, Robert Scholes, Joanne Shattock, Rosemary T. VanArsdel, Alfred Bendixen, Alarma Kathleen Brown, Michael J. Kiskis, Debra A. Castillo, Rey Chow, John F. Crossen, Robert F. Fleissner, Regenia Gagnier, Nicholas Howe, M. Thomas Inge, Frank Mehring, Hyungji Park, Jahan Ramazani, Kenneth M. Roemer, Deborah D. Rogers, A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, Regina M. Schwartz, John T. Shawcross, Brenda R. Silver, Andrew von Hendy, Virginia Wright Wexman, Britta Zangen, A. Owen Aldridge, Paula R. Backscheider, Roland Bartel, E. M. Forster, Milton Birnbaum, Jonathan Bishop, Crystal Downing, Frank H. Ellis, Roberto Forns-Broggi, James R. Giles, Mary E. Giles, Susan Blair Green, Madelyn Gutwirth, Constance B. Hieatt, Titi Adepitan, Edgar C. Knowlton, Jr., Emanuel Mussman, Sally Todd Nelson, Robert O. Preyer, David Diego Rodriguez, Guy Stern, James Thorpe, Robert J. Wilson, Rebecca S. Beal, Joyce Simutis, Betsy Bowden, Sara Cooper, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Tarek el Ariss, Richard Jewell, John W. Kronik, Wendy Martin, Stuart Y. McDougal, Hugo Méndez-Ramírez, Ivy Schweitzer, Armand E. Singer, G. Thomas Tanselle, Tom Bishop, Mary Ann Caws, Marcel Gutwirth, Christophe Ippolito, Lawrence D. Kritzman, James Longenbach, Tim McCracken, Wolfe S. Molitor, Diane Quantic, Gregory Rabassa, Ellen M. Tsagaris, Anthony C. Yu, Betty Jean Craige, Wendell V. Harris, J. Hillis Miller, Jesse G. Swan, Helene Zimmer-Loew, Peter Berek, James Chandler, Hanna K. Charney, Philip Cohen, Judith Fetterley, Herbert Lindenberger, Julia Reinhard Lupton, Maximillian E. Novak, Richard Ohmann, Marjorie Perloff, Mark Reynolds, James Sledd, Harriet Turner, Marie Umeh, Flavia Aloya, Regina Barreca, Konrad Bieber, Ellis Hanson, William J. Hyde, Holly A. Laird, David Leverenz, Allen Michie, J. Wesley Miller, Marvin Rosenberg, Daniel R. Schwarz, Elizabeth Welt Trahan, Jean Fagan Yellin
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- Journal:
- PMLA / Publications of the Modern Language Association of America / Volume 115 / Issue 7 / December 2000
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 23 October 2020, pp. 1986-2078
- Print publication:
- December 2000
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