China’s Desert Treasure

[eyesoftara]

China is a treasure of culture. Particularly from the Buddhist perspective, China has a very long history, longer than Tibet. With great skills the ancient artisans carved, drew and created many Buddhist murals, statues and drawings and as it is traditional, I suspect as offerings to the 3 Jewels, and it is left for eternity to discover and see. Mogao Caves is a great example.

[icy]

Project to preserve beauty of the Mogao Grottoes

The Mogao Grottoes in North West China are a treasure trove of cultural wonders. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art in the world. And now with the aid of the latest technology, archaeologists are creating a digital archive of these priceless treasures.

The Mogao Grottoes have been used as a natural canvas for artists for more than 1,600 years. The frescos are now extremely fragile, so archaeologists have been digitally archiving them since the 1990s. But now the project has gone beyond mere preservation.

"Our initial aim was to make a record of them, but now we are inviting people to check out our digital archive online so they can see the beauty of the Mogao Grottoes for themselves," said Wang Xiudong, deputy director of Dunhuang Academy China.

The frescos and painted sculptures have been hard to archive digitally because of the cramped space in the caves and the irregular surfaces of the works.







The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art in the world. And now with
the aid of the latest technology, archaeologists are creating a digital archive of these
priceless treasures.

[rossoneri]

This is fantastic, can't believe that people centuries ago are be able to do or built such a magnificent piece of architectural and art without a help from modern tools and machineries. China is definitely a place to visit if one is interested in historical buildings and sites and especially Buddhism sites.

[angelica]

Mogao Caves have the world most beautiful and precious Buddhist art. Mogao Caves can be make into a place for Buddhism study and also a holy place for pilgrimage. May Buddhism flourish in China. For those that visit the place or see the murals of Buddha images get the blessing and get the imprint to practice dharma in the future.

[icy]

Mogao Grottoes sees 5,000 sq.m. fresco restored


Deep within a network of caves lining the shores of the Dunhuang oasis in Gansu Province, thousands of 1,600-year-old Buddhist sculptures sit in silent decay.


Mogao Grottoes [Photo/Xinhua]
 
The Mogao Grottoes, the collection of buddhist artworks occupying the caves on a 1,700-meter cliff which are considered one of finest in existence, was listed as a world heritage site in 1987.

With most of the frescos and sculptures dating back to 400 A.D., hundreds of years spent in the damp confines of the caves has taken its toll on the precious works, says Wang Xudong, deputy president of Dunhuang Academy.

Wang and his colleges have spent decades countering the corrosion in the ancient cultural site.

As the academy celebrates its 70th anniversary this month, they are celebrating the 5,000 sq meter restoration milestone while digging in to continue their exhaustive efforts.

Since its establishment in 1944, the academy has devoted its resources in repairing and restoring the antique wall paintings in the grottos.

Located in nearby Dunhuang City, the academy boasts a team of highly skilled specialists who, in addition to decades restoring the artworks, have spent the last few years photographing the frescos in hopes that even if the buddhist art falls to decay, digital references will last for centuries to come.

Using modern technology, they've also devised processes to "cure" the cracked, flaked, faded and detached murals.

Their goal, Wang says, is to "prolong the life of the world cultural heritage site" indefinitely.

Known as the Thousand Buddha Caves, the Mogao grottoes consist of 735 caves, with the ancient buddhist frescos on the inside walls covering a combined area of 45,000 square meters. The paintings are considered among the preserved in the world.

Ever since the 1980s, the academy joined with relic protection institutions worldwide in exploring mural restoration technologies and cultivating talents to help keep the site alive.

In 2009, the National Engineering Research Center for Conservation of Ancient Wall Paintings was set up in the academy to serve as a state-level engineering center on ancient mural restoration for both Mogao grottoes and other ancient murals around the country.

Of China's 38 sites on the World Heritage List, 11 have ancient murals. Dunhuang, a booming town on the ancient Silk Road, is home to more than 800 grottos that are at least 1,600 years old.


http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2014-09/10/content_33480810.htm?

[Midakpa]

The Mogao Caves are situated on a cliff at the eastern foot of the Mingsha Mountain in the Gobi Desert southeast of the Dunhuang City, in Gansu Province. They are considered to be a treasure of Buddhist culture with wall paintings and statues created in some 500 grottoes cut over hundreds of years. Construction of the Mogao Caves is believed to have started with one monk's dwelling somewhere in the 3rd - 4th centuries, but the huge complex of caves that developed did not come to completion until more than 1000 years later, a period which saw the rise and fall of the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern Dynasties, the Sui and the Tang dynasties, the Five Dynasties, the Song Dynasty, the Western Xia, and the Yuan Dynasty.

The Mogao Caves are  a collection of cave architecture, painted sculpture and wall paintings. The sculptures in all ranges of sizes include Buddhas, bodhisattvas, Lokapala (Heavenly kings, the four guardians of the world and of the Buddhist faith), patrons and attendants.The murals are mostly Jataka stories on the life of the Buddha and the Eight Aspects of Buddha's life, with a rich variety of ornamental patterns in such designs as apsaras.

The murals that dominate the Mogao Caves are of the highest artistic level. They give an extensive and detailed account of the Buddhist sutras and beliefs of the times. They also offer a wide range of subjects: the Buddha in various manifestations, a biographical series on Shakyamuni the Buddha and the legends of his enduring humility and sacrifice to rescue souls; traditional folk tales of the major Chinese ethnic groups as well as historical events related to the Buddha, and eminent monks in disseminating Buddhism. In the paintings are also portrayals of human figures, flying birds, pavilions, and descriptions of grotto builders and their families, including how they dressed. (Zheng Lixin, Guide to Chinese Buddhism, 2004, pp. 127-130)

[Midakpa]

The Mogao Caves have become a United Nations World Cultural and Heritage Site. Based on the different artistic styles found in these caves, Chinese archaeologists have constructed a list of the time of construction of the 480 caves that still exist:

1. Western Jin, Sixteen Kingdoms, and Northern Dynasties - 32 caves
2. Sui - 100 caves
3. Tang - 232 caves
4. Five Dynasties - 40 caves
5. Song and Western Xia - 59 caves
6. Yuan - 9 caves
7. Time unknown - 8 caves

These statistics indicate that no caves were built at Dunhuang during a period of about 270 years that covered Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern dynasties. The reason is that both the Eastern Jin and the Southern dynasties were situated south of the Yangtze River, whereas Dunhuang is located in the northwest. Construction resumed after the Sui Dynasty unified China, and this is shown clearly in the list.
(Zheng Lixin, Guide to Chinese Buddhism, p.129)