Qinglian Temple Jincheng, Shanxi Painted Clay Production Process Of Analysis And Virtual Restoration

The Qinglian Temple, located in Jincheng City, Shanxi Province, is composed of a mount of Song Dynasty architecture. In addition, there are also66exquisite painted clay sculptures remained in the temple, which have extremely high historical, artistic and scientific value. However, these precious clay sculptures are now in bad status, therefore, the scientific research and conservation for them are urgently in need. In this paper, the manufacturing materials and technology of the clay sculptures in Three-Buddha-Palace, Arhat-Hall and Maitreya-Palace were deeply researched. Besides, we also took one clay sculpture in Arhat-Hallas an example, and did virtual restoration and AR technology showcase for it by digital technology, which proved that the digital technology has the potential to do the clay sculptures reservation.In this paper, we did comprehensive analysis of clay layer and painted layer by several analytical methods, including X-Ray Fluorescence(XRF), X-Ray Diffraction(XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope-X-Ray Energy Dispersive(SEM-EDS), Micro Raman Spectroscopy (μ-RS) and Polarized Light Microscopy(PLM). Firstly, the analytical results indicated that the clay layer of clay sculpture is mainly composed by quartz, plagioclase, calcite, illite and lime with different content. Secondly, the sand content of clay layer decreased from coarse clay layer to fine clay layer. Moreover, the main component in priming layer is kaolin, however the Lord Buddha in the Three-Buddha-Palace is an exception, the priming layer of which is mainly composed by lime. Finally, the analytical results of painted layer showed that, excepting the green pigment in Arhat-Hall cannot be identified, all the pigments used in clay sculptures are inorganic mineral pigments, including yellow iron oxide, red iron oxide, red lead, cinnabar, atacamite, masicotite, smalt and so on.According to combination of on-site investigation and particle analytical results, we could infer that the clay sculpture in Qinglian Temple is constituted by four parts:supporting part(framework+iron nails+straw rope), coarse clay layer(1-5cm), fine clay layer(5-10mm) and painted layer(including white powder layer and re-painted layer,40-500μm). In addition, we also found that a lot of clay sculptures had ever been re-painted and repaired by paper. Furthermore, by microscopic section analysis, we also analyzed and classified the manufacturing technology of clay sculptures, then inferred its production processes.On the basis of understanding the manufacturing materials and production processes of these clay sculptures, we did virtual restoration and showcasefor them with the help of digital technology. The restorative process includefulcra, applying mud, variegation and so on. And the superiority of this innovated restorative process is that, in the prerequisite of ensuring their original appearance authenticity, we do not need to touch with clay sculptures themselves during all the restorative process and the restorative process even can be repeatedly modified. More importantly, compared with traditional display mode, the AR technology used in this paper is more flexible, by which, the repaired clay sculptures can be showed on site and t he models can be upgraded immediately following the restorative process. In conclusion, the AR technology has a great signification for the restoration of cultural relics.