picture: ‘First red’ and’ third red’.

Cinnabar, dan, 丹

The Matter of Chinese Painting, Case studies of 8th century murals

Author: Lucien van Valen, chapter 3, page 73:

 

Cinnabar, vermilion or mercuric sulphide is one of the oldest known mineral reds. In China, it is found in its mineral form in Hunan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan. In Chinese painting, it is one of the earliest known mineral colours. It is a mercuric sulphide. The Chinese make a difference between natural cinnabar and the mercuric sulphide that is concocted by the Chinese in a simple refining process, the result of which is called vermilion.

Samples:

In October 2000 Mr. Liu Xiangyang of the Qianling museum took me on an expedition to the tombs of the tombs of the Prince Yide, Prince Zhanghuai and the Princess Yongtai. Our group consisted of Mrs. Shen Qinyan, Mr. Zhang Qunxi, Mrs. Yang Xiaojun, the Chinese painter Mr. Li Guoxuan, a Japanese painter Mr. Hayashi Tsutomu (who at that time went by the Chinese pronunciation of his name, Mr. Lin Gong) and myself (Chinese name: 范旅仙，Fan Lüxian). Mrs. Shen, Mr. Zhang and I collected numerous samples in the three tombs; in total 13 samples in the three tombs.

In some of these samples taken from the Tang murals I found sulphur, indicating cinnabar: YD3, YD5, YT3 and YT5; these results are also confirmed with SEM-EDX59.

                                                Photograph 3-02, Detail of ‘Horse and Groom’

                                        Acc. No. F1945.32, Freer Gallery of Art.

I have visually confirmed the presence of vermilion under the microscope on the scroll painting ‘Horse and Groom’.  The scroll was microscopically tested in July 1970 by Elisabeth West Fitzhugh and vermilion is also recorded in her report. The scroll was tested again in 1980 by John Winter, whose hand-written report is in the archive of the SCIRM: this report also contains the XRD-result of his testing, proving the presence of both azurite and vermilion.

Some History:

In Europe the use of cinnabar was, until the sixteenth century, mostly limited to the natural mineral. According to Rutherford Gettens there is some evidence of the process of artificially making cinnabar from mercury and sulphur in the recipes in a eight century Latin manuscript and in some Arab alchemist notes of the eighth or ninth century. Gettens, Feller and Chase, ‘Vermilion and Cinnabar’, in Roy, Ashok, editor, Artist Pigments Volume 2, 1986, p 159-182.

By the seventeenth century the Chinese were exporting vermilion to Japan and the western world. The cargo list of the Dutch ships on average hold between 50 and 200 kilos of vermilion. Boxer, C.R., ‘Dutch Merchants and Mariners in Asia 1602- 1795’, Variorum reprints, London, 1988, p. 186- 187.

The Chinese Painter Yu Fei'an describes the ancient method of preparing cinnabar for the painter’s use: 中国绘画颜色的研究, Zhongguo huihua yanse de yanjui, The research of Chinese Painting Colours, Beijing, 1957

“Cinnabar must be ground in a mortar. The finer the grain the better. Then it is put into a bamboo tube. At the bottom the bamboo tube must be a bit longer than the lowest partition. The tube must be clean and must be bound together using a lead thread to prevent it from splitting open. Use animal glue in the thicker solution and of it only the top clear solution. Mix this together with the cinnabar in the bamboo tube while adding clean water. Let it rest for an hour. Heat the tube au-bain-marie in an earthenware pot over a slow fire. It must not reach to boil therefore you must add cold water every now and then. When the cinnabar in the tube is almost dry, you must let the water cool down. Now wait for the cinnabar in the tube to dry up completely and remove the lead thread from the bamboo tube. Do not let it split by itself, but carefully cut it open with a knife. Now the tube contains a top layer of true red that close to the top will be yellow and this is called third-red; the bottom layer is called first-red and will be purple at the bottom of it; in the middle we find a clear red which is called second-red. The three colors first-red, second-red and third- red are kept separately in different jars.”

The split bamboo tube with vermilion and malachite separated in three layers: the bottom layers are called ‘ first red’ and ‘first green’.

The method described by Yu relies on the process of separating the size of the grains of the mineral into different layers. The coarser the grain, the heavier it is. The slow heating of the tube with the suspension of glue-water and cinnabar will start the process of separation into layers of different size grains, the heavier grains settling down before the finer and therefore lighter grains. This results in layers of different hues, and although Yu states that the finer the grain the better, I must say that there is a limit to this: The size of grain determines the hue of the colour, and the smaller grains display less colour than the coarser grains, so that if the mineral is ground too finely the colour will disappear altogether, leaving you with nothing more than a whitish powder.

The sublimation method of preparation is also used for malachite and azurite. The bottom layer is always of the deepest hue and will be called first-red, first-green and first-blue.

In western grinding techniques, this separation process is done in a different way, using a set of sequential sieves. This European method involves first grinding the mineral, and then ‘wet sieving’ it: putting it through a set of sieves, starting with a coarse-mesh sieve and gradually using a finer and finer mesh, in order to separate the grains by size.

                                                                Cinnabar cristals on a matrix of barite.

In the twelfth century, Shen Gua writes about cinnabar in connection with the search for immortality that has been part of China’s traditional alchemy from the dawn of their civilization. It seems that in the mind of alchemists, since the nature of this material is deadly, it must when changed in the right way also be able to give life, or even better: eternal life: Shen Gua, 梦溪笔谈, Mengxi bitan, Brush notes from the Dream stream, Zhonghua shuju, Xianggang, 1975, scroll 21, section 375, p 216.

Xishi, 细石

“The physician Cai Shining from Shuizhou once had a valuable Xi stone, and he said: “I received this from a Taoist over ten years ago.” It is purple in colour is and shining, like cinnabar sand from Chenzhou, but even more shining and brilliant, as if it enlightens people: I tested if it worked as a medicine; it was wrinkled; and heavy like gold and tin. On the top there are two or three dimples; with a small knife you can scrap some off, and what comes off is a red powder like cinnabar sand. If you take a grain the size of a hempseed, it will cure the diseases of the fool and of the heated heart. A pound of it will breathe for two years. Cai Shining did not know its name, but he entrusted it to me. There is said: “This is cinnabar medicine that was refined in the old days.” The form and the colour are strange, it can breathe, it is not an ordinary substance, and it must be examined, identified and classified.”

Another of Shen Gua's stories warns about the danger of a substance that is known for its use in alchemy [Shen Gua, 梦溪笔谈, Mengxi bitan, Brush notes from the Dream stream, Zhonghua shuju, Xianggang, 1975, scroll 24, section 432, p 238]

Zhusha, 朱砂

“Once, my cousin Li Shansheng, together with his companions, was refining cinnabar into vermilion; they had been at it for a year, and because they put the foam back into the kettle, a small piece fell to the ground. One of his companions formed it into a pill and swallowed it; he was taken over by dizziness and the same night he died. Cinnabar is a proper medicine and can even be given to a newborn baby, but when heated it transforms and it can kill people. When it comes to the reverse of this transformation, on the one hand it can be very poisonous, why can it not then be life giving on the other hand; so if it can kill people by transformation, this must be the reason it also gives life to people. It is just that this art has not yet been discovered. This is the immortals' method of gaining wings and ascending into heaven, it cannot be denied; but you still have to warn against it.”

In the article ‘Oracle-Bone Color Pigments’, published in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol 2 No.1, march 1937; Roswell S. Britton described the paint material on oracle bones from the YinXu site in Anyang, which lies in the province Henan. At that time, oracle bones had already been studied for some twenty or more years. In what is probably one of the first attempts to analyze this material using scientific methods, Britton details the finding of cinnabar and an undefined black carbon. The black might be pigs blood in a degenerated from, but that could not be established at the time of publishing. He also mentioned pigs blood, together with powdered quicklime as a colourant for lacquer ware.

A exhaustive list of synonyms for cinnabar, but only in chinese characters, is published in the book ‘Chinese Materia Medica’, translated and edited by B.E. Read and C. Pak, in the section ‘Compendium on Minerals and Stones’:
For clarity of the terms I have here added a transcription and a translation of the terms:

Cinnabar, cinnebarite, Dan Sha, 丹砂

Synonyms:

Zhusha, 朱砂[pearl sand]

Basha, 巴沙[Sichuan sand]

Yuesha, 越沙[Zhejiang sand]

Yunmusha, 云母沙[mica sand]

Machisha, 马齿沙[horse teeth sand]

Dousha, 豆沙[bean sand]

Mosha, 末沙[last sand]

Chensha, 辰砂[Chenzhou sand]

Liukong, 硫汞[liquid mercury]

Honghongkong, 红汞礦[red mercury]

Honghong, 红汞[red mercury ]

Honghuang, 汞黄[mercury yellow]

Hongliu, 汞硫[mercury fluid] Vermilion, levigated sulphide of mercury,

Yinzhu, 银朱

Xinghong, 猩红[orangutan red]

Zifenshuang, 紫粉霜[purple powder snow]

[Read and Pak, Chinese Materia Medica, A compendium of Minerals and Stones, Chinese Medicine Series, Southern Materials Center, Inc, Taipei, 1982 section IV, 2, p 49]