In SIP, there is the Jiang Sixu Workshop, a time-honored brand boasting traditional Chinese painting pigment making techniques that have been inscribed on the national intangible cultural heritage list. With a history of over three centuries, it preserves not only the traditional craft for painting pigment production, but also the thousand-year spirit of Chinese painting art, highlighting SIP’s characteristics as a place of both ancient and modern charms.

Zhang Bailin, the sixth-generation inheritor of this intangible cultural heritage, believes every pigment has its own life and story.

“Our traditional Chinese painting pigments are made with substances from natural minerals, plants and animals, suitable for all kinds of Chinese painting techniques,” the man said.

Behind the exquisite ancient colors lies an extremely intricate manual dedication. An ordinary raw stone must undergo more than ten procedures including quarrying, grinding, glue application, precipitation and boiling before it can transform into fine, even pigments.

Craftspeople must rely on their naked eyes and experience to precisely distinguish the thickness, hardness and color differences of pigment particles, carefully separating clearly layered grades. A batch of qualified traditional pigments often takes as long as two months to complete.

Jiang Sixu Workshop has been upholding this principle: slow work produces fine results. For more than 300 years, it has carried forward the ancient pigment making techniques and brought them to life in the modern circumstances with its innovation.

September 13, 2026