Craftsmanship and materials: painted Bodhisattva sculptures in the Fengguo Temple dated to the year 1020 in Yi County, Northeast China

Abstract

As a royal temple, the Fengguo Temple has profound historical, artistic, scientific and social values. With a thousand-year history, it is one of the three existing temples of the Liao Dynasty in China. Now there remains the Main Hall with delicate wall paintings and vivid painted sculptures. The research subject of this paper is the painted Bodhisattva sculptures in the Main Hall. The study target is to reveal the craftsmanship and materials of the painted Bodhisattva sculptures. X-ray detection and the ground-penetrating radar were employed to explore the internal structure of the painted sculptures reasonably. Through microscope analysis, X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopic analysis, the chemical constituents and hierarchical structure of the pigment layer were detected and analyzed. The grain composition and chemical composition of the base layer were presented as well. The research results offer detailed documents for subsequent restoration and pave the way for preventive conservation. Finally, this paper summarized the craftsmanship and materials of painted sculpture works in different periods, so as to explore the development history of the painted sculptures culture.