Page 84 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

satellites such as Lhatse, Gyangtse and Ngamring the Cinnabar is the principal ore from which mercury
colours imported from India through Darjeeling and is produced. Once the mercury has been separated from
Kalimpong actually predominated among artists for a the sulfur content of cinnabar by heating, it is still
time. Although these colours began to lose some popu- possible to recombine it with sulfur. Ordinarily, the
larity in the 1930s, merchants who specialized in selling combination of mercury with sulfur yields the black
imported pigments continued to do business at the mercuric sulfide. But by carefully controlled heating
seasonal trade fairs and in the main towns of Gtsang. and cooting, mercury and sulfur can be combined to
Finally, some synthetic blue and green pigments produce the silver and red metallic crystals of artificial
from China also found their way into Tibet, especially cinnabar.
in the eastern districts, Khams and A-mdo. Sum-pa As early as the 2nd century AD this transmutation
mkhan-po, writing on methods and materials of art, of liquid mercury to crystalline cinnabar and back again
mentioned a Chinese green (rgya ljang = verdigris?), and was discovered and studied by Chinese alchemists,
to this Mi-pham-rgya-mtsho added a mention of a who considered these chemical reactions to be of
Chinese blue (rgya mthing). Unlike the Tibetan blue fundamental importance since they so vividly displayed
and green (bod mthing, bod ljang), i.e. azurite and the transmutation of the elements, and above all since
malachite, which were ground in plain water, the the changes were reversible. 23 The process of synthesis
artificial Chinese pigments were said to need grinding was also known in ancient India, and both India and
with size solution (spyin chu). 19 China became exporters of synthetic cinnabar and
vermilion to Tibet. Subsequently the technology also
Cinnabar (cog la ma) and Vennilion (mtshal) spread to Tibet. Authors of later Tibetan pharmaco-
peias, for instance, describe the technique. In Tibetan
medicine cinnabar or native vermilion was classified as a
"meltable mineral medicine" (bzhu ba'i rdo sman), while
the synthetic cinnabar, called da chu, was classified as a
"manufactured salt" (bzo tshwa). 24 Another name for
the synthetic cinnabar was "white vermilion" (mtshal
dkar), perhaps because of the silver glint of the man-
2
made crystals. 5
To make paint from crystalline cinnabar, it was
first crushed, and then some of its impurities were
removed by repeated rinsing with clean water. In China
one traditional way of clarifying cinnabar for pigments
involved mixing the finely crushed cinnabar with water,
and then removing the water and any material floating
on it after three days. The remaining sediment con-
tained the best quality pigment. 26 One finds a similar
technique among the Tibetans as described by Mi-
pham-rgya-mtsho:

Grind the vermilion in a smooth, white mortar.
Crush it finely (phram = phra mar). Then pour in
some a-ru-ra (Terminalia chebula) water, so that
it just covers the vermilion. Leave it for one day,
and then throw out the yellowish surface layer
For their brightest reds Tibetan artists used both native of water. After that, grind it with the pestle using
mercury sulfide - the mineral cinnabar - and the same circular motions. This is a key point of technique
pigment synthetically produced. The mineral is known that will yield [a paint] that is easily ground, of
as cog-la-ma (cinnabar) or mtshal-rgod ("native excellent colour, and easy to apply. Then com-
vermilion") in Tibetan, and it is said to occur in some pletely pulverize it, grinding gently and for a long
parts of Tibet, for instance in the Southeastern region time in a porcelain cup or in some other paint
Lho-brag. 20 Most of the cinnabar or vermilion used in container (tshon gong = tshon kong). 27
Tibet, however, came from China and India, and for
this reason it was also called rgya-mtshal ("Chinese Tibetan painters, however, did -not always resort
or Indian vermilion").21 At Chen-chou in Hunan to special procedures for the preliminary crushing and
Province in China, for instance, cinnabar was mined in washing of cinnabar. Although cinnabar is technically
particularly abundant quantities;22 indeed, these min.es classified as a metalJic subst:1nce, it is one of the softest
were probably the ultimate source of much of the of all the Tibetan pigments, and painters often crushed
cinnabar used by Tibetan artists. When ground into a and ground it into a powder in any sort of mortar or
fine powder suitable for painting, cinnabar was known bowl. But when it came to the fine grinding of the
to the Tibetans simply as vermilion: mtshal. vermilion, many artists prescribed exacting procedures.

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