Restoration study of Dunhuang mural paintings--gaining the scientific understanding of the deterioration mechanism on the murals

这些壁画的画家们巧妙地使用了有限的颜料调色板，涂抹了几层颜料，混合了颜料，并有效地定位了补色，从而提高了色彩效果。另一方面，众所周知，随着时间的推移和暴露在各种环境因素中，这些颜色会达到极端的变质状态，无论是变色、褪色还是剥落。我们的研究始于对壁画作为“物理构造”的认识。我们观察了这些建筑不同部分的各种当前状态，并观察了每个点的明显退化状态，从而对壁画上的退化机制有了科学的了解。然后，我们利用我们对这一机制的理解，尽可能地接近于了解壁画在创作时的外观。

The painters of these murals heightened their color effects through the adroit use of a limited palette of pigment materials, applying layers of paint, mixing the pigments and effectively positioning complementary colors. On the other hand, it is also well known that over the course of long periods of time and exposure to a variety of environmental factors, these colors reach an extreme state of deterioration, whether discoloration, fading or flaking.Our research starts from an awareness of the mural paintings as "physical constructs." We have looked at the various current states of different parts of those constructs and observed the state of deterioration apparent in each of those spots, thus gaining a scientific understanding of the deterioration mechanism at work on the murals. Then we used our understanding of that mechanism to come as close as possible to an understanding of the appearance of the murals at the time of their creation.