Recently, the exhibition "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains - Special Exhibition of Green and Green Landscape Paintings of Past Generations" held by the Palace Museum attracted countless attention. In order to see the style of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", many friends did not hesitate to queue for hours against the scorching sun. "A Thousand Mountains and Rivers" is 51.5cm long and 11.9m wide, which is the work of the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng, when he was eighteen years old. Because Wang Ximeng died young, and it is also the only work he handed down. This green landscape painting from nearly a thousand years ago still looks bright and clear today because of its mineral pigments.
In the world of colorful pigments, minerals have always been favored. As a natural inorganic dyes, mineral pigments have a long history of application and are still used in textiles, coatings, inks, plastics, ceramics, glass and other fields. Despite the high cost, processing trouble, and difficulty in use, mineral pigments have better color resistance and color effect than organic pigments. Under the microscope, natural mineral pigments have different color effects than other color particles because natural mineral colors contain substance that cannot be removed, so they have a unique and subtle hue. The fineness of the particles of mineral pigments directly affects the use process. And the difficulty of using coarse particle pigments is that it is difficult to dye evenly, dye delicately, and the pigments below No. 3 cannot be seen by the naked eye, but the hue is also lightened and pink accordingly.
"A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is painted on silk with stone blue and stone green, and it is very difficult to delicately dye mineral particles on silk fabrics. And every small detail in the picture of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is very well depicted. This eighteen-year-old boy of the Song Dynasty used his talent to amaze people in the present and future generations, which is also the real artistic charm of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
