Chapter 1762 Division of Labor
In the eyes of the fourth cousin, these equipments are incredible.
Open the two photos in PS, cut and copy Wang Rong's part, make it a layer of the silk photo, adjust the opacity to 50%, lock the aspect ratio and zoom. Then the fourth cousin looked at Wang Rong on the translucent layer above, and the Wang Rong on the silk photo gradually merged into one, perfect to the point of no difference.
The reason why I chose Wang Rong is because the old manle in his hand is as Ruyi as the dry tobacco pot. It is a long and straight line segment, which can be used as a perfect reference.
After dealing with Wang Rong, it is no longer a problem to deal with several other characters. This time Zhou Zhi made some adjustments to the contrast of the silk photo and the three-color mask layer, and deliberately removed the channel color. , and unexpectedly revealed some picture details.
In short, after comparison and adjustment, except for Rong Qiqi, who can't really see clearly, the Seven Sages can all fit perfectly.
This proves that this painting "Seven Sages and Rong Qiqi in the Bamboo Grove" is indeed from the same model as the brick painting "Seven Sages and Rong Qiqi in the Bamboo Grove" from the Southern Qi Tomb. In other words, this painting It is a copy based on the original work.
After the authenticity of this was determined, and combined with other evidence, the inscription on the painting was "Lu Tanwei's Picture of Zhulin Zhulin, Fengyi Lang Hanlin Taizhao Painting Academy Li Zhaoqing" The words illustrate the true origin of this painting.
Because this sentence contains the words "Painting Academy Chief Marquis", which was an official position that Li Zhaoqing only had after he followed Empress Li into the Song Dynasty, so the creation period of this painting was the early Song Dynasty.
This era is more than a hundred years earlier than the existing copy of Gu Kaizhi!
Now that the "Seven Sages and Rong Qiqi in the Bamboo Grove" and the "Statue of Ruyilun Bodhisattva" can be judged to be authentic, the possibility of the other two paintings discovered together with them being authentic increases by one point!
After confirming the authenticity of the scroll, the next step is to restore it. Although the height of the scroll itself is about the same as that of an ordinary scroll, more than fifty centimeters high, its length is exaggerated, more than four hundred centimeters long, which is the same as Gu Kaizhi's "The Legend of Martyrs and Wisdom" is comparable.
Oh, now it should be more appropriately called "Biography of Women and Benevolence and Wisdom, Volume 1".
More than four hundred centimeters means more than four meters long. This length now even exceeds the length of the living room in most buildings.
The weights and measures of each dynasty are different. Taking Song Dynasty silk as an example, there are specific requirements for a piece of silk. Generally, the width is two feet and a half, the length is about forty-two feet, and the weight is twelve two.
Then in the Song Dynasty, a foot was 31.68 centimeters, a pound was 670 grams, and one tael was roughly equal to 42 grams.
So a piece of Song silk, converted into metric systems, has a width of slightly 80 centimeters, a length of just over 13 meters, and a total weight of 504 grams, which is almost a modern pound.
It can be said to be a fairly thin material.
Although the total width is 80 centimeters, the silk cannot be used in its entirety because the edge and center parts have different density. There are many things to pay attention to when making silk for calligraphy and painting. The upper and lower edges must be removed. The density is not uniform and the part is easily torn by contamination during transportation. Only the center part is left and is used as silk for calligraphy and painting.
So the width is about sixty centimeters, which is the width limit of almost all ancient scrolls.
The length is not limited and can be spliced infinitely. For example, "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" has a width of 51.5 centimeters and a length of about 12 meters; "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" has a width of 24.8 centimeters. The length is 5.28 meters; "Spring Dawn in the Han Palace" is only 37 centimeters wide but 20 meters long.
What is even more exaggerated is the "Longevity Celebration of the Empress Dowager Chongqing" painted by Zhang Tingyan in the Qing Dynasty. It was painted from Wanshou Mountain in the west of Beijing to Shou'an Palace in the Forbidden City. The whole picture is more than 100 meters long and is divided into four volumes. , the length of a single roll is also thirty meters!
So it is impossible without splicing. When the ancients made painting silk, they had to go through aging processes such as glue, alum, and dyeing. In addition to smearing, it also needed to be soaked. There was another restriction here - the size of the container.
So although a piece of silk is very long, craftsmen will also cut it, process it into the size of standard calligraphy and painting paper, do preliminary processing, and sell it.
Except for the special "customized models", painting long scrolls usually involves temporary splicing of silk fabrics. This is not a difficult process and can be completed by every painting shop.
The same situation is true for the damask used as the edge of the sky and the earth, separating water, starting and ending, and providing decorative protection.
This time, the fourth aunt wanted to try to keep all these "edge materials", which made it more difficult to peel off the frame.
All four paintings have been circulated for a long time, but they are relatively stable and handled by relatively few people. They were mainly concentrated in the Song Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty.
Although there are not many inscriptions and postscripts, they are still very important, such as Cao Buxing's "Statue of Ruyilun Bodhisattva". Mi Fu's postscript behind it is an important clue to prove that it is authentic. At the same time, Guang Mi Fu's own calligraphy posts are already valuable and important cultural relics.
These must of course be preserved perfectly.
So now comes the difficulty of the problem. To raise the edge of the scroll, it must first be humidified to dissolve the glue in the scroll.
In other words, for a scroll that is more than four meters long, this work must be completed in a short period of time, which is quite demanding.
In the end, everyone decided to use the back-mounting method, which means to put the painting face down, first peel off the backing, then tear off the life paper connected to the center of the painting, and then lay a new life paper. paper, apply paste water to "glue" the center of the painting and put it on another workbench. The only thing left on this workbench is each section of silk brocade. At this time, you can paste silk on it. Then I found the seam and broke it into sections, turned it over and repaired it carefully.
It's not too complicated to say, but it's still very laborious to do. It mainly involves many stages of work, which need to be completed at one time. There can be no delay and timeliness is required.
After detailed division of labor, the three of them decided that one person would be responsible for one section, the fourth cousin would be responsible for the tail part with the descendants’ postscript, the fourth aunt would be responsible for the beginning of the volume with less text and more silk brocade decorations, and Zhou Zhi would be responsible for the core part of the painting.
It’s not that the second elder deliberately left the opportunity for exercise to Zhou Zhi, but that the old man really couldn’t compare with the young people’s eyes. At the same time, he needed to concentrate for a long time, and the second elder couldn’t compare with Zhou Zhi.
There is also an occupational disease in this line of work, which is irregular heartbeat. When people sit in a state of meditation and concentration for a long time, their heartbeat will become slower, and over time, they will become ill.
No one paid attention to this problem before. My fourth cousin and aunt also had these problems because of their long-term work. Zhou Zhi didn’t care much about this in his previous life. He only discovered it after he was “reborn” and started working in this industry. Regarding this issue, I run in the morning and do Tai Chi every day when I have the opportunity. In fact, it is all for this purpose.
However, I really can’t care about it these days. This kind of tough battle is rare once in a lifetime, and the hard work for a few days is nothing.
As the saying goes, all snakes bite people, and the three of them are happy to be bitten by them in this job.