• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.132-149
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• 2011

In ancient period, a variety of inorganic or organic pigments had been used as colorants in various kinds of religious and secular paintings such as tomb paintings and wall and scroll paintings in buddhist temples, and danchung(cosmic patterns) for the surface of wooden buildings. This study discusses the results obtained from an analysis of the pigments on the wall paintings of Yeongsanjeon(Hall of Vulture Peak) in Tongdo temple by a qualitative analysis using a field-XRF. The results can be briefly summarized as follows. Firstly, assuming from the major components examined from F-XRF analysis, raw materials of pigment of each color are: red to be Cinnabar(HgS) or Hematite($Fe_2O_3$); white to be White Lead[$2PbCO_3{\cdot}Pb(OH)_2$] in most cases and Calcite($CaCO_3$) or Chalk($CaCO_3$), Kaolin($Al2O_3{\cdot}SiO_2{\cdot}4H_2O$) in some cases; yellow to be Yellow Ocher[$FeO(OH){\cdot}nH_2O$]; black to be carbon(C); green on the painted surface to be Celadonite[$K(Mg,Fe^{2+})(Fe^{3+},Al)(Si_4O_{10})(OH)_2$] in most cases; dark green on the halo of figures to be Malachite[$CuCO_3{\cdot}Cu(OH)_2$], Copper Green[$2CuO{\cdot}CO_2{\cdot}H_2O$] or Atacamite[$Cu_2Cl(OH)_3$]. Secondly, incarnadine and pink were made by mixing with more than two pigments such as red and white for making various tone of colors. The qualitative analysis of pigments on the wall paintings of Yeongsanjeon, in conclusion, displays that the all pigments for ancient periods are inorganis pigments. However, it has the limitation to identify a definite kinds of mineral for each pigment because it was not possible to collect samples from cultural heritage for conducting a crystalline analysis of XRD.