Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1613 Preparation

The wood carving is very delicate, so the details of this rubbing are much finer than other stone rubbings. Many traces of dry brush, flying white, and ink splashing, which are not seen in stone rubbings, are well preserved in this engraved version.

It can be said that apart from the four calligraphy works of Huaisu that have been handed down with limited number of characters, namely "Eating Fish", "Self-Portrait", "Bitter Bamboo Shoots" and "On Calligraphy", "Thousand-Character Cursive Script from Qunyudang" is the most famous calligraphy work that can be traced back to Huaisu's handwriting.

This set of woodblocks has of course long been lost in the long river of history, and even the Thousand Character Classic that was printed out is now only left with the last set.

Since both items are unique pieces, An Siyuan decided to entrust them to Zhou Zhi for restoration, and paid such a high "deposit", which showed great trust in Zhou Zhi.

Of course Zhou Zhi could not be careless. "The Epitaph of the Buried Crane" is a large folded volume, and "Thousand Character Classic" is a large scroll, both of which are much larger than the six-hand scroll. This was also a challenge for him.

The folded version of "The Epitaph of the Buried Crane" can be carried out in accordance with the twelve-character guideline for the restoration of ancient books compiled by Zhou Zhi at Shu University, which is "repair the old as it was, minimize intervention, and leave enough room for future use."

When the Inscription on the Buried Crane was taken out of the warehouse, it was found to be a large volume with a camphorwood plywood and a brocade cover, bound with ivory buckles, and the leaves were 62 cm x 34.6 cm. The gray-brown cover had cracked, broken, and fallen off, revealing the camphorwood base.

After opening it and observing it further, it was found that the top and bottom of the rubbing were already the same color as tea. Not only was the color darker, but there were even some holes caused by insects.

This shows that this set of precious rubbings had experienced a period of poor preservation before it came to An Siyuan. Fortunately, the holes stopped deteriorating after An Siyuan took over, which was a blessing.

In addition to wormholes, there are also damages, which are mainly concentrated at the top, bottom, and where the pages are folded, all accompanied by brittle fracture.

A closer look reveals that this large folded book was restored once in the Qing Dynasty, with the top, bottom, and center of the book restored. However, the restoration took too long, and people often flipped through the pages, causing the paste to lose its stickiness, contamination from sweat and grease, and physical damage from repeated opening and closing of the pages, causing the previously restored paper to fall off, become damaged, and wrinkle.

In fact, the practice of making cliff stone rubbings such as "The Epitaph of the Buried Crane" into large albums forms a paradox with the preservation of the painting core just because of the way it is opened and closed. The only reason for doing so is that those who once owned it were all great calligraphers who wanted to learn from it and therefore often copied it.

There is no doubt that large albums are the best way to place them on the desk in the study and carefully copy them.

So if you look closely at the previous restoration, it was also a very detailed restoration at the time, but they just didn't change it and maintained the binding style of the large album.

If this album was not so famous, and Zhou Zhi secretly got his hands on it, he would definitely dismantle it and replace it with a large central hall, restoring the magnificent scene of "The Inscription on the Buried Crane" still on the cliff.

However, there was no custom in ancient times to hang rubbings in the main hall or study. That is something that only modern people can think of. Now this large folding book is already world-famous, so Zhou Zhi can only follow the principle of restoring the old as it is and continue to restore it in the way of a large album.

After the restoration plan is determined, the next step is to prepare for the restoration. The first thing to do is to measure the paper thickness, color, fiber composition, fiber density, and even pH, and also conduct a color bleeding experiment.

For such authentic works, handmade paper must be used. The appropriateness of the repair paper, the thickness, pH value, fiber composition, etc. of the paper must be taken into consideration. The selected repair paper is related to the smoothness, beauty and quality of the repaired album. The science and technology in the United States is quite advanced, and there is even a fiber analyzer numbered XWY-II that can perform non-destructive testing on rubbings.

After testing, it was found that the main components of the rubbing paper used for "The Inscription on the Buried Crane" and "Thousand Character Classic" are bamboo fiber, that is, bamboo paper;

Using a paper thickness gauge, the thickness of the rubbing paper of "Thousand Character Classic" was measured to be about 0.042 mm, and that of the rubbing paper of "The Inscription on the Buried Crane" was 0.045 mm.

The pH value of both is acidic due to the large amount of ink, with a pH value of 5.05.

The choice of paper is relatively broad, because the paper used for ancient rubbings is far less sophisticated than the high-end paper used for calligraphy and painting. Therefore, it is not appropriate to use ancient high-end calligraphy and painting paper that is still in existence in the world, or modern high-end handmade antique paper for repairing rubbings.

Finally, based on the origin of the original rubbing paper, Zhou Zhi also selected handmade bamboo paper from a small factory in Ningbo, Zhejiang, which is in the same area today. This kind of bamboo paper is about 0.043 mm thick and has a pH value of about 5.17. The thickness is between the two rubbings, and the pH value is also very close, so "one paper can be used to repair two rubbings."

In addition, there is paper used for gluing and brittle reinforcement. This paper is made of mulberry paper, which is about 0.004 mm thick, has a pH value of about 6.43, and is nearly milky white in color.

This paper is also produced in the south of the Yangtze River. Finally, under the recommendation of Mr. Qi, Zhou Zhi chose a kind of three-leaved paper from Zhejiang Province, which is very similar to the original restoration paper. These two types of paper basically meet the requirements for restoration paper.

All other things are ready-made, but the brocade used for the cover needs to be repaired with new ones. The restoration method is to send the jacquard pattern and the color card parameters used back to Shuzhong, and use the restored antique brocade weaving technology to input the pattern into the computer, use algorithm analysis to generate the jacquard program, and then use the computer jacquard machine to weave the exact same antique brocade.

This work can now be completed in Master Yang's studio. Although it sounds easy, it is not easy to do it in reality, and Zhou Zhi wants it to be expedited. No matter how good the relationship is, we can only spend money.

Fortunately, the thing An Siyuan had no shortage of was money. After paying 50,000 yuan in "research and development expenses", Master Yang and his apprentices spent five days on color matching, wiring, and debugging the longitude and latitude. As the actual product did not cost much, it only took an afternoon.

While waiting for the brocade to arrive, Zhou Zhi still had a lot of things to do, one of which was two kinds of color bleeding experiments.

The two rubbings that need to be restored urgently both have ink and vermilion colors on them. During the restoration process, the paper will be sprayed with water to moisten it. The ink and vermilion colors on them may blur when they come into contact with moisture. Therefore, a bleeding experiment is needed before restoration, and then a decision will be made whether the restoration plan needs to be adjusted based on the results of the bleeding.

The method is to use a brush dipped in water to dot the ink and vermilion areas, then use clean plain paper to absorb the water and press several times to observe whether there is any color left on the plain paper, and then judge the possibility of the ink and vermilion bleeding based on the color depth.

After several experiments, Zhou Zhi breathed a sigh of relief. The craftsmanship of the two rubbings was very fine, and no color was found on the plain paper.

But this is not the end. The same method has to be tried again on two kinds of restoration paper. Because after the final restoration, the color needs to be added on the restoration paper. If the added ink and cinnabar cause bleeding and pollute the original scroll, it will ruin the reputation.