Excellent point. Thank you for the reminder! Anyway, in this
documentary I had mentioned that I had seen they mentioned the fact
that during the time period of these warriors' creation a shade of
purple (I can't remember if it was a dye or pigment) was used that
fell out of fashion shortly afterward and no one has been able to
reproduce it since. Scientists have tried and tried to reproduce but
still can't but have apparently made some useful discoveries out of
their experiments. I really wish I could remember the name of the
show since I'm rather tempted to try and track down a copy. There
was tons of useful and fascinating info in it.
Cheers,
Danielle
At 07:55 PM 12/3/2012, you wrote:
I recall reading how shocked people were when they discovered that
those pristine white marble Greek sculptures had been brightly painted.
One thing to bear in mind is that artist's pigment palettes and
dyer's palettes are often quite different.
Another thing is that paint colors often are not available in dyes.
The beautiful ultramarine blue so commonly shown on clothing in the
various Books of Hours painted for the Duc de Berry in the 14th c.
was a color unavailable in dye.
Third, colors that are desirable in paint - for example, rare or
expensive pigments - are often quite different from the colors that
are rare or expensive in dyes. That ultramarine blue i mentioned
came from lapis lazuli and was expensive and desirable in paintings.
But blue in clothing came from woad or indigo and was not so
desirable. One of the most desirable colors for wool and/or silk was
the bright blue-red from kermes and other similar lac insects (and
in the 16th c. from New World cochineal). There is a lake from a lac
insect used in paint (alizarin), but it doesn't have the bright glow
of the dye.
Additionally, what mordants are used to fixed the dyes effect the
colors that result. Using different mordants -- for example alum,
tannin, and iron -- results in three different colors -- alum fairly
bright and true; tannin browned a bit; iron "saddened", i.e. greyed,
a bit. Not to forget that mordants often weaken fibers so that they
don't survive the centuries well.
Further, what fibers are being dyed also effects that colors. Any
cellulose fiber -- not just linen or cotton, but also various other
bast fibers such as hemp, ramie -- do not take most colors well, so
will be paler and fade more quickly. Whereas proteinaceous fibers
such as wool and silk take colors very well. Silk tends to be
reserved for the wealthy, but in many places common people wear
wool, even in summer, if they have sheep, or other wool-type fiber
bearing animals.
Finally, unlike Euro-American artists of the 19th and much of the
20th centuries, in many cultures, artists are NOT painting from
life, and this goes for the colors they use to depict garments.
These points are true -- in general -- for many centuries and at
least the continents of Asia and Europe, if not on other continents.
I can't speak specifically to the Chinese issue, but it is worth
reminding ourselves that art is not photograph, and just because
something is painted a certain way does not mean that people wore
those colors. Maybe they did, but to back it up, we need more input
than just pieces of art -- surviving textile fragments, textual
descriptions, etc.
Anahita
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