Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1762 Division of Labor

In the eyes of my fourth cousin, these devices are simply amazing.

Open the two photos in PS, cut and copy the part that showed Wang Rong, make it into a layer of the silk photo, adjust the opacity to 50%, lock the aspect ratio and scale it. Then the fourth cousin watched as Wang Rong on the semi-transparent layer above and the Wang Rong on the silk photo gradually merged into one, perfectly without any difference.

The reason why Wang Rong was chosen is that the Ruyi in his hand, which looks like an old man's music stick or a pipe, is a very long and straight line segment, which can be used as a perfect reference.

After dealing with Wang Rong, dealing with the other characters was no problem. This time Zhou Zhi made some adjustments to the contrast of the silk photo and the three-color mask layer. After deliberately removing the channel color, some details of the picture were accidentally revealed.

In short, after comparison and adjustment, except for Rong Qiqi who is really unclear, the seven sages can all fit perfectly.

This proves that the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi" painting is indeed based on the same model as the brick painting "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi" in the Southern Qi tomb, which means that this painting was copied from the original.

After the authenticity was confirmed, combined with other evidence, the inscription on the painting, "Picture of the Sages in the Bamboo Grove by Lu Tanwei, presented by Li Zhaoqing, a Hanlin scholar and a waiter at the Academy of Painting," explained the true origin of the painting.

Because there are five words "绘院饗候" left in this sentence, which was an official position that Li Zhaoqing held after following Li Houzhu into the Song Dynasty, the painting was therefore created in the early Song Dynasty.

  This era is more than a hundred years earlier than the copy by Gu Kaizhi that is currently in existence!

Since "The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi" and "The Statue of Avalokitesvara" have already been confirmed to be authentic, the possibility that the other two paintings discovered together with them are authentic has increased even more!

After confirming the authenticity of the scroll, the next step was restoration. Although the height of the scroll itself was similar to that of an ordinary scroll, at more than 50 centimeters, its length was exaggerated, at more than 400 centimeters, comparable to Gu Kaizhi's "Biography of Virtuous and Wise Women".

Oh, now it should be more appropriately called "Biographies of Women of Benevolence and Wisdom, Volume 1".

More than four hundred centimeters is more than four meters long, which is now even longer than the length of the living rooms in most buildings.

The weights and measures of each dynasty were different. Taking Song silk as an example, there were specific requirements for one piece of silk. Generally, the width was two feet and five points, the length was about forty-two feet, and the weight was twelve taels.

Then one foot in the Song Dynasty was 31.68 cm, one catty was 670 grams, and one liang was roughly equal to 42 grams.

So one piece of Song silk, converted into the metric system, is about 80 centimeters wide, a little over 13 meters long, and weighs 504 grams, which is exactly the same as one pound today.

It can be said to be a very light material.

Although the total width is 80 cm, the silk cannot be used as a whole because the density of the edge and the center is different. There are many requirements for making silk for calligraphy and painting. The parts with uneven density at the upper and lower edges and which are easily contaminated and torn during transportation must be removed, leaving only the center part for use as silk for calligraphy and painting.

Therefore, a width of about 60 centimeters is almost the width limit of all ancient scrolls.

The length is not restricted and can be spliced ​​infinitely. For example, "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is 51.5 cm wide and about 12 meters long; "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" is 24.8 cm wide and 5.28 meters long; "Spring Dawn in the Han Palace" is only 37 cm wide but 20 meters long.

Even more exaggerated is the "Birthday Celebration Picture of Empress Dowager Chongqing" painted by Zhang Tingyan in the Qing Dynasty. The painting stretches from Wanshou Mountain in the west of Beijing to Shou'an Palace in the Forbidden City. The entire picture is more than 100 meters long and is divided into four scrolls. The length of a single scroll is 30 meters!

Therefore, it is impossible not to do splicing. When the ancients made painted silk, they had to go through the curing process of glue, alum, dyeing, etc. In addition to painting, it also needed to be soaked, which added another restriction - the size of the container.

Therefore, although a piece of silk is very long, craftsmen will still cut it into the size of standard paper for calligraphy and painting, do preliminary processing, and then sell it.

Except for special "custom-made" ones, long scrolls are usually painted by temporarily splicing silk cloth. This is not a difficult craft and every picture mounting shop can complete it.

The same is true for brocade, which is used as the borders of the ceiling and ceiling, as water separators, at the head and tail, and for decoration and protection.

This time, my fourth aunt wanted to try to preserve all the "edge materials", which made it more difficult to remove and mount the paintings.

All four paintings have been circulated for quite a long time, but they have been relatively stable, with relatively few people handling them, mainly concentrated in the Song Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty.

Although there are not many inscriptions and postscripts, they are still very important. For example, Cao Buxing's "Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva" has Mi Fu's postscript at the back, which is an important clue to prove its authenticity. At the same time, Mi Fu's own calligraphy post is already an important cultural relic of great value.

These must of course be preserved perfectly.

So now comes the difficulty. In order to raise the edge of the scroll, it must first be moistened to dissolve the glue in the scroll.

In other words, the work of painting a scroll that is more than four meters long must be completed as a whole in a short period of time, which is a high requirement.

Finally, everyone decided to use the back-peeling method, which is to put the painting face down, peel off the back mounting first, then tear off the paper connected to the center of the painting, and then lay new paper, brush on glue and water to "stick" the center of the painting down and put it on another workbench for processing. What's left on this workbench are only the various sections of brocade. At this time, you can paste silk on it, and then find the seams to decompose it into sections, turn it over and carefully repair it.

It is not too complicated to say, but it is still very laborious to do, mainly because it involves many stages of work that need to be completed as a whole at once, without any delays and with a certain time limit.

After a detailed division of labor, the three decided that each would be responsible for a section. The fourth cousin was responsible for the ending part with the postscript by later generations, the fourth aunt was responsible for the front part with fewer words and more decorative silk and brocade, and Zhou Zhi was responsible for the most core part of the painting.

It’s not that the two elders deliberately left the opportunity to exercise to Zhou Zhi, but the elderly really can’t compete with the young people in terms of eyesight, and at the same time, they need to concentrate for a long time, which the two elders cannot compare with Zhou Zhi.

There is also an occupational disease in this line of work, that is, irregular heartbeat. When a person sits still and concentrates for a long time, the heartbeat will become slow, and over time it will cause illness.

No one paid attention to this issue before. My fourth cousin and my fourth aunt also developed these problems due to long-term work. Zhou Zhi didn’t care much about this in his previous life. He only discovered this problem after he was "reborn" and started working in this field. He would go jogging and practice Tai Chi in the morning every day whenever he had the chance. In fact, it was all for this.

But I really can't take care of it these days. This kind of tough battle only happens once in a lifetime, and a few days of hard work is nothing.

As I said, all snakes bite people, and the three of them were happy to be bitten by it.