The origin of watercolor painting

The history of human writing and illustrated books has been 3500 years. At first, a fibrous plant called papyrus was found along the Nile River in Egypt. The stem bark can be made into scrolls for writing and painting, and books on science, history, witchcraft and religion can be made. Another important purpose of this scroll is to be buried with the dead and accompany them to another world. The words on it help them explain what they have done all their lives to Osiris, the ghost. The portraits on the scroll were later called miniature paintings, all of which were transparent. Khaki and ochre are taken from soil; Red is taken from cinnabar minerals; Azurite is blue, stone green is green, khaki is yellow and shellac is orange; Black is made of willow charcoal and white is made of chalk. These pigments are mixed with gum Arabic and protein and diluted with water before use. In short, this is watercolor.

One thousand years later, around 170 BC, Wang Ou Menes II of Pagama took the lead in using parchment. The sheepskin was treated with lime, the wool was cut off, and then softened with pumice, which became this new writing material. These sheepskins were bound into pamphlets, called manuscripts, and then bound into volumes, becoming sheepskin classics handed down to future generations. Since then, the manuscript has been using parchment.

By the ninth century, whether in Greece, Rome, Syria or Byzantium, most miniature paintings were painted in opaque watercolors mixed with lead and white. The Carolyn Dynasty in Charlemagne at that time. Charlemagne attached great importance to manuscript creation, and he called many great painters who used transparent and opaque watercolors alternately. This mixed use continued until the late Middle Ages, and even during the Renaissance, watercolors were widely used in miniature paintings. In fact, these are the embryonic forms of watercolor painting.

The scope of watercolor painting can be extended to ancient Egyptian scrolls, Persian foreign miniatures and illustrations of European medieval Bible manuscripts, as well as the remains of cloth curtains in the ancient traditional Gu Ren tomb in China, the eastern suburb of Luoyang, and even can be traced back to prehistoric times, such as altamira and Lacey (Altamira &; Lascauxl) cave paintings. Although many ancient humans mixed water with pigments and resins as a tool to record their trivial lives and convey their social civilization, with the passage of time and the accumulation of knowledge, European watercolor painting rose in 18 and 19 centuries. Especially the fruitful results created by many British watercolor painters. Since then, watercolor painting has gradually become perfect. By the end of 19, watercolor painting has developed a complete independent system. In a narrow sense, "watercolor painting" refers to the way of painting on paper with watercolor pigments and water as dilution media. There are usually two major fields: transparent watercolor and opaque watercolor.

With the progress of science and technology and the emergence of new painting materials, watercolor painting in the 20th century is no longer limited to transparent watercolors and opaque watercolors. Draw all the materials that can be diluted with water. Such as gypsum powder, acrylic, transparent watercolor liquid and watercolor pencil, are all included in the field of watercolor painting.