Painted Statues Research Articles

Influence of solar radiation on the surface loss of the painted statues in Grotto No. 3 of Maijishan Grottoes, China

The embedded hygrothermal environment of cultural heritages (solar radiation, temperature, humidity, etc.) plays a significant role in their conservation and survival, especially in the case of outdoor ones. The surface loss of painted statues is often related to fluctuations in the surface temperature caused by the ever-changing solar radiation; however, the quantitative relationship between them remains unclear. To clarify, in this paper, hygrothermal monitoring and numerical simulation were conducted on painted statues with an age of over 1400 years in the World Heritage Maijishan Grottoes. The results showed that the ruined eaves have led to significant differences in solar radiation intensity and surface temperature between the upper and lower statues, with maximum values of 598.7 W/m2 and 13.6 °C, respectively, corresponding to surface loss rates of nearly 15% and 50%. Under the influence of direct insolation, the thermal stress on the statue surface increased with decreasing height, resulting in a difference of 10.8 kPa between the highest and lowest points. Taking the tensile strength of clay (10 kPa) as a threshold of thermal stress, the yearly number of events exceeding this threshold at the upper and lower rows were 2819 and 3173, respectively. Overall, direct insolation has a significant effect on the temperature changes on painted statue surfaces, thus leading to greater thermal stress and greater degrees of surface loss. For heritages in open or semi-open environments, it is necessary and effective to evaluate their preservation conditions based on the threshold and then propose suitable conservation methods for preventive protection.

A Study of Song Dynasty Polychrome Statue-Making Techniques and Materials in the Sage Mother Hall of the Jinci Temple, Shanxi, China

The polychrome statues of the Sage Mother Hall at the Jinci Temple in Taiyuan city are recognized as one of the three masterpieces of the Jinci Temple. They are also regarded as an outstanding representative of ancient Chinese temple statues. These statues possess great historical, artistic, scientific, cultural and social values, and they are an important physical material for the study of ancient Chinese history, culture, religion, politics and economy, as well as science and technology. The internal structure, plaster layer samples and surface pigments of the polychrome statues of the Sage Mother Hall were analyzed by optical microscope (OM) scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM–EDS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy (Raman), X-radiography and other analytical methods in order to gain an understanding of the production process and pigment composition of the polychrome statues of the Sage Mother Hall. According to the findings, the following steps were taken during the production of the polychrome statues that decorate the Sage Mother Hall at Jinci Temple: building a wooden skeleton, fixing the skeleton with rivets or twine, shaping the clay form with coarse clay, shaping the appearance with fine clay, refining the molded appearance, and white substrate layer painting. The majority of the pigments are inorganic mineral pigments: the red pigments include cinnabar and minium; the blue pigments include ultramarine; the green pigments include lavendulan; the yellow pigments include yellow ochre; the black pigments include carbon black; and the white pigments and substrate layers include white lead and lead sulfate. Some of the pigment layers can be seen in multiple layers, which indicates that over the history of the painted statues of the Sage Mother Hall, they have been subject to a series of repainting, with the more recent repainting time perhaps having taken place during the late Qing Dynasty and the following time period.

BİTHYNİA KENTİ KLAUDİOPOLİS’TEN (BOLU) BİR HEYKEL BAŞI

This article considers the head of a marble painted statue which was found during construction work in the city center of Bolu and delivered to the Bolu Archeological Museum. This study aims to clarify the identity and dating of the head. The statue head has been examined in terms of craftsmanship techniques, and a stylistic-typological analysis has been carried out with respect to the facial features, facial expression, head posture, hairstyle and headband. Combining the findings from this analysis with information about the context around the find-spot and data concerning administrative and religious personalities in the history of the city, an attempt has been made to draw some conclusions about the statue head. The facial features of the Bolu head reflect primarily the idealism and linear style of the Classical Period. On the other hand, its facial expression and head posture can also be seen in sculptures of the Hellenistic Period. No other similar sculpture has been encountered previously. In view of this, we would appear to be faced with an eclectic and unique work, probably a local production, indicating that the head is not a copy of a particular work. The stylistic and typological features of the Claudiopolis (Bolu) head can also be seen on sculptures from the Hellenistic Period up until the time of Hadrian, making it quite difficult to date this head. However, the polishing technique applied to the surface of the statue head where bare skin is visible may point to a date in the Hadrianic period, an important phase in the history of Claudiopolis. This dating may be supported by the fact that right next to the head structural foundations and a structural element are said to have been unearthed, and these have been dated to the Hadrianic period due to the inscription on this structural element. There is no definite attribute indicating who the head is depicting. The only accessory on the statue head is a circular cross section headband. Because of this, only the hairstyle and the type of headband can provide clues as to the statue's identity. The head does not possess the usual hairstyle of the Roman imperial period. Divided into two from the bun, the hair is combed from back to front and cut short around the face from the forehead to behind the ear. This style and model of haircut is also manifested in representations of Artemis and Apollo from the Classical Period, although the treatment of the bun differs. In addition, such short hair is a rarity in female statues, and researchers concur that it is exceptional for women to be depicted with short haircuts, unlike in the case of men. Furthermore, a circular cross-section headband is understood in most cases to be an indication of a male hero or god. One of the twelve phyla of Claudiopolis is named after the god Apollo. Based on the ancient history of the city and the typological comparison of this head with other sculptural works, it can be suggested that the statue head under discussion depicts Apollo and can be dated back to the Hadrianic Period.

Analysis of Painted Materials and the Latest Repaint Time of Arhat Statues in Zijin Nunnery, China

The arhat statues of Zijin Nunnery in Suzhou are painted clay statues considered to be ancient Chinese treasures, but there has been little investigation into the materials used in their manufacture along with a general lack of systematic and scientific knowledge regarding these statues. We attempted to address this deficiency in our study described here, where the materials comprising the pigment layer of the colored statues were characterized using a variety of techniques, including X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, micro infrared spectroscopy, and micro Raman spectroscopy. A range of contemporary synthetic pigments, such as chrome yellow, emerald green, and artificial ultramarine, was discovered to be available in addition to conventional inorganic pigments such as cinnabar, minium, and azurite. Analysis of the massive statue in the main hall showed that shellac is used as a surface sealing compound on the painted clay statue and beeswax as a bonding medium for the pigment layer. Following an extensive investigation into the synthetic pigments, it was determined that the painted statues of Zijin Nunnery were painted during the most recent era of the late Qing Dynasty.

Towards a history of sexual harassment in the workplace, Mexico city (1920-1950)

In response to the phenomenon of sexual harassment, feminists have taken to the streets, painted statues and public walls, and organized for change. This essay respondsto the calls of Mexican feminist scholars for an approach to sexual harassment that takes into consideration the specificities of Mexican realities. The essay examinesthe conditions that shaped sexual harassment in the 1920s in Mexico City, taking into account the participation of women in the workforce, the cultural representation ofworking women, and legal, institutional, and cultural spaces that shaped the space within which women could speak out against sexual harassment.

Polychrome arhat figures dated from the Song Dynasty (960\u20131279 CE) at the Lingyan Temple, Changqing, Shandong, China

Scientific analysis revealed the materials and techniques used in the process of making polychrome sculptures providing a solid foundation for the protection and restoration of the painted statues. In addition, the analyses revealed changes in colour schemes applied to the sculptures can provide the basis for the virtual restoration of the painted statues. In order to carry out scientifically-informed protection and restoration of the Bodhidharma statue from the Lingyan Temple, Changqinq, Shandong, several analytical methods such as optical microscope (OM), Micro-Raman spectroscopy (μ-RS), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM–EDS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were employed. Analyses clearly reveal the information including the stratigraphic structure and the composition of pigment. The use of silver foils and golden yellow pyrophyllite mineral to replace gold foils were found in the gilding paint layer in the later repainting after the Song Dynasty. This work reports the coexistence of emerald green (Cu(C2H3O2)2·3Cu(AsO2)2) and the degradation product lavendulan (NaCaCu5(AsO4)4Cl·5H2O) in large areas of the paint stratigraphy and on the surface confirming that the degradation of emerald green is related to the thickness of the paint layer; in thinner paint layers emerald green is transformed in lavendulan, while thicker layers of contain both lavendulan and emerald green, suggesting an environmental source of chlorides.

The King's Business

The King's Business William Schultz (bio) Peter W. Williams. Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. xiv + 277 pp. Notes and index. $42.00. Sarah Ruth Hammond. Darren Dochuk, editor. God's Businessmen: Entrepreneurial Evangelicals in Depression and War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. xii + 228 pp. Notes and index. $45.00. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" The young Jesus was not talking about business of the General Motors variety, but that did not stop advertising executive Bruce Barton from appending this quote to the start of his bestselling 1925 book The Man Nobody Knows. Barton's effort to glean business lessons from the Gospels is not a bizarre curio from a money-mad decade; rather, The Man Nobody Knows was an earnest attempt to interpret religion's place within a capitalist society. The complex interplay of religion and capitalism has long been the topic of historical scrutiny, from Max Weber's writings on the "Protestant ethic" to contemporary studies of the prosperity gospel. The recent interest in the history of capitalism has produced, however, an efflorescence of new work on "religion and capitalism" that combine rigorous research with theoretical insight. The two books under review here—one by a scholar with a long and distinguished career, the other by a scholar whose promising career was cut tragically short—thus arrive at the perfect time, at least in commercial terms. It would be a mistake to pigeonhole Religion, Art, and Money and God's Businessmen as simply "religion and capitalism" books because both offer much more. Read together, they illuminate the shifting boundary between the sacred and secular in the modern United States. Peter W. Williams, an emeritus professor of religion and American Studies at Miami University in Ohio, has written a book with a sophistication that belies its simple title. Religion, Art, and Money offers a wide-ranging history of Episcopalianism in the United States between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Williams, as he makes clear in the preface, does not try to give a comprehensive survey of Episcopalianism. His concern is with "the ways [End Page 85] in which Episcopalians … participated in social and cultural movements, on which they put their own stamp" (p. xii). If this book has an overarching argument, it is that Episcopalians reclaimed art as a valid form of religious experience, rescuing it from the derision cast upon it by some varieties of Protestants. To prove this point, Williams provides a thorough excavation of the history of American Episcopalianism. "Excavation" is the proper metaphor for the book's first section, "Churches," which examines the Episcopalian art of church-building. The decades around the turn of the twentieth century witnessed the construction of many spectacular Episcopalian churches, Boston's Trinity Church, a masterpiece of the Romanesque style, foremost among them. Williams interweaves the history of Trinity with the biography of its most famous pastor, Phillips Brooks, who in his lifetime was one of America's most influential and admired men. Brooks was a "Broad Church" Episcopalian, part of a faction within the church that declared itself open to modern ideas. For "High Church" Episcopalians, who felt a close affinity with Catholicism, the church architecture of choice was not Romanesque but the ornate splendor of the Gothic Revival. Many Episcopalians admired the Gothic style for its supposed moral qualities—only Gothic architecture, they argued, could properly capture the symbolic dimension of religious life. Ralph Adams Cram, one of the era's leading architects, made a career out of translating this idea into concrete reality. Every element of Cram's churches, such as All Saints Church in Ashmont and St. Thomas in Manhattan, was meant to convey a deeper meaning. Williams deftly unravels these meanings, explaining, for instance, the significance of Cram's decision to use a painted statue of Jesus's crucifixion rather than an unadorned cross in All Saints. Williams provides an equally astute analysis of the Episcopal cathedrals built in this era. Churches such as New York's St. John the Divine and San Francisco's...

Remarks on royal statues in the form of the god Osiris from Deir el-Bahari

This article recapitulates information available, and mostly not published yet, on the statues in the form of the god Osiris from the Upper (Coronation) and Lower Porticoes of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. This includes the North and South Colossi, both of which were recently restored in a pilot reconstruction project undertaken by the Polish team, revising a missed restoration attempt by earlier excavators. Other examples include a sandstone painted statue of Amenhotep I, from Asasif, in the form of the mummiform figure of the god Osiris, which was also reconstructed, a fragmentary sandstone statue of Amenhotep III in the form of Osiris, as well as two fragments of statues of Osiris from the Third Intermediate Period burial ground discovered in the area of the temple of Hatshepsut.

Determination of thickness of thin turbid painted over-layers using micro-scale spatially offset Raman spectroscopy.

We present a method for estimating the thickness of thin turbid layers using defocusing micro-spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (micro-SORS). The approach, applicable to highly turbid systems, enables one to predict depths in excess of those accessible with conventional Raman microscopy. The technique can be used, for example, to establish the paint layer thickness on cultural heritage objects, such as panel canvases, mural paintings, painted statues and decorated objects. Other applications include analysis in polymer, biological and biomedical disciplines, catalytic and forensics sciences where highly turbid overlayers are often present and where invasive probing may not be possible or is undesirable. The method comprises two stages: (i) a calibration step for training the method on a well characterized sample set with a known thickness, and (ii) a prediction step where the prediction of layer thickness is carried out non-invasively on samples of unknown thickness of the same chemical and physical make up as the calibration set. An illustrative example of a practical deployment of this method is the analysis of larger areas of paintings. In this case, first, a calibration would be performed on a fragment of painting of a known thickness (e.g. derived from cross-sectional analysis) and subsequently the analysis of thickness across larger areas of painting could then be carried out non-invasively. The performance of the method is compared with that of the more established optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique on identical sample set.This article is part of the themed issue 'Raman spectroscopy in art and archaeology'.

Development of portable defocusing micro-scale spatially offset Raman spectroscopy.

We present, for the first time, portable defocusing micro-Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (micro-SORS). Micro-SORS is a concept permitting the analysis of thin, highly turbid stratified layers beyond the reach of conventional Raman microscopy. The technique is applicable to the analysis of painted layers in cultural heritage (panels, canvases and mural paintings, painted statues and decorated objects in general) as well as in many other areas including polymer, biological and biomedical applications, catalytic and forensics sciences where highly turbid stratified layers are present and where invasive analysis is undesirable or impossible. So far the technique has been demonstrated only on benchtop Raman microscopes precluding the non-invasive analysis of larger samples and samples in situ. The new set-up is characterised conceptually on a range of artificially assembled two-layer systems demonstrating its benefits and performance across several application areas. These included stratified polymer sample, pharmaceutical tablet and layered paint samples. The same samples were also analysed by a high performance (non-portable) benchtop Raman microscope to provide benchmarking against our earlier research. The realisation of the vision of delivering portability to micro-SORS has a transformative potential spanning across multiple disciplines as it fully unlocks, for the first time, the non-invasive and non-destructive aspects of micro-SORS enabling it to be applied also to large and non-portable samples in situ without recourse to removing samples, or their fragments, for laboratory analysis on benchtop Raman microscopes.

Towards a vocabulary of limitations: the translation of a painted goddess into a symbol of classical education

This paper discusses how ties with society are accumulated and interpreted as the ‘culture’ of an artefact. Following the reinterpretation of a painted statue into a white museum artefact, I argue that the rules we have to follow in approaching an artefact create a series of unrelated socio-cultural connotations which shape our perception of the object. The culture of the artefact is therefore largely the culture of the context through which it is presented. Hence, by distancing an artefact from an established context you also distance it from the networks that make up a large part of its cultural value. To discuss this process I draw on the works of Michael Callon and Bruno Latour, describing the presentation as a ‘translation’ – a process where the artefact is reinterpreted from one state into another. As a method to describe values sprung from the presentation of the artefact, I propose, and exemplify, a vocabulary of limitations for mapping the ties between society and artefact in different contexts. This vocabulary – developed for this article – helps us identify deeper connections between artefact, context and society by focusing on how interaction has been shaped around the artefact.

The Pleasures of Excess

The Pleasures of Excess

Portable X-ray diffractometer equipped with XRF for archaeometry

A portable X-ray diffractometer equipped with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer was improved so as to get a diffraction pattern and a fluorescence spectrum simultaneously in air from one and the same small area on a specimen. Here, diffraction experiments were performed in two modes, i.e. an angle rotation mode and an energy dispersive mode. In the latter a diffraction pattern and a fluorescence spectrum were simultaneously recorded in a short time, 100 s or less, on one display. The diffractometer was tested in the field to confirm its performance. Targets chosen for this purpose were a bronze mirror from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220), and a stupa and its pedestal which are part of the painted statue of “Tamonten holding a stupa” from the Heian Period (794–1192), enshrined in the Engyouji temple founded in 996. The bronze mirror was identified as a product of the Han Dynasty from its chemical composition and the existence of the δ phase in the Cu–Sn alloy. The stupa and its pedestal were decorated with gold powder and gold leaf, respectively. From the XRF data of the pedestal, the underlying layer of gold leaf seems to have been painted with emerald green.

Image-Based Virtual Navigation System for Art Caves

Dunhuang Art Cave (DAC), one of the most famous cultural heritage sites in the world, is confronted with serious natural efflorescence. How to virtually rebuild the caves and support their investigation and exploitation with computer graphics (CG) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies is an urgent and important project. In this paper we discuss in detail the essential technical issues in our image-based virtual DAC navigation system. For DAC modeling of the cave architecture we employ 3D surface modeling, texture and 2D image-based modeling, murals, and painted statues. For DAC rendering we use the level of detail (LOD) method for murals and image-based rendering for painted statues. For DAC shadow generation we investigate a simple 3D model-based solution. Finally, this paper will show the general system architecture as well as demos of virtual navigation.

Color restoration and image retrieval for Dunhuang fresco preservation

Dunhuang Mogao Cave, located in Gansu province, is a typical Chinese heritage site. Well preserved, the caves contain more than 555 grottoes, 2,000 painted statues, and 5,000 square meters of wall paintings. Scientists and artists have worked for a long time on how to preserve and restore the murals' colors, but have not found satisfactory methods. Discovering how to use advanced computer techniques to preserve, restore, and reuse Dunhuang fresco art information is a very interesting and complex task. In our project, we integrate many techniques, such as image processing, information retrieval, knowledge representation, and intelligent reasoning, to deal with these problems. Restoration of the frescoes is the basic focus of our project. Because of human activity, most of the frescoes fade day-by-day, with some seriously damaged. We propose a new, intelligent approach to color restoration. Each restored fresco will be preserved in the fresco database along with the original. For many of the Dunhuang frescoes, the key to preservation is to find an effective method for organizing, storing, managing, and retrieving the fresco data. We adopt content- and semantics-based image retrieval methods to solve these problems. Our fresco database will support Dunhuang pattern creation and virtual cave travel, reusing the fresco art information from the database. In this article, we mainly focus on the color restoration and retrieval techniques we use for fresco preservation.

Music and musicians at the Guild of Our Lady in Bergen op Zoom, c. 1470–1510

Marian guilds and confraternities proliferated in fifteenth-century Brabant. They gave expression to the pride, devoutness and community spirit of the urban middle classes. Their chapels were invested with all the riches their members could afford: altarpieces, stained-glass windows, painted statues, silk and velvet cloth, gold and silverware, and other expensive ornaments. But the jewel in the crown for every confraternity was polyphony. Prestigious Marian confraternities such as those at 's-Hertogenbosch, Bergen op Zoom and Antwerp were among the major musical establishments of the Low Countries. They employed some of the best-known composers of their time: Jacob Obrecht, Pierre de la Rue, Johannes Ghiselin, Jacobus Barbireau, Matthaeus Pipelare, Nicasius and Jheronimus de Clibano, Paulus de Roda and Hermannus de Atrio. Other Marian confraternities in Brabant are also known to have cultivated polyphony, though probably on a lesser scale, for instance Brussels and Diest.