Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is located 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang City, on the west bank of Daquangou riverbed and on the cliff at the east foot of Mingsha Mountain. These caves were dug in the second year of the former Qin Jianyuan (AD 366). There are 49/kloc-0 caves, more than 2,400 sculptures and 45,000 square meters of murals. It is the largest existing "world art treasure house" in the world. 19871February was listed as a world cultural heritage by UNESCO.
The artistic features of the Mogao Grottoes are manifested in the organic combination of architecture, statues and murals. Cave-shaped organizational system is divided into Zen Cave, Palace Cave, Tower Temple Cave, Dome Cave and Shadow Cave. Colored plastics are divided into round plastics, floating plastics, shadow plastics and good plastics. Murals are divided into statue paintings, historical paintings, story paintings, Buddhist historical paintings, architectural paintings, landscape paintings, animal paintings, decorative paintings and other different contents, which systematically reflect more than ten dynasties such as the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Western Wei Dynasty, the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Five Dynasties, the Song Dynasty, the Xixia Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty. All aspects of cultural exchanges between the East and the West have become rare cultural treasures of mankind.
Since 1900, more than 50,000 volumes of religious documents and secular documents have been found in the Tibetan Sutra Cave in Mogao Grottoes. Dunhuang art shocked the world, and "Dunhuang studies" became a world-renowned school. Donated by Japan, Dunhuang Research Institute built the Dunhuang Art Exhibition Center at the foot of Sanxing Mountain opposite the Mogao Grottoes, and copied some original large grottoes, which made the viewing contents of tourists in the Mogao Grottoes more colorful.
Mogao Grottoes is located in Mingsha Mountain, 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang City, Gansu Province, northwest of China. On the cliff of Yanquan River at the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain in the scenic spot, there are five floors up and down. Compared with the scale, the length of the grottoes from north to south is 1600 meters, and the grottoes vary in size. There are 37 small caves, just enough to put your head in. Dadong 16 covers an area of 268 square meters, with a height of 96, which is 50 meters from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain. Grottoes were built in the second year of Qin Jianyuan (the first year of Taihe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, that is, AD 366), and have been continuously built for thousands of years after the Northern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Zhou, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Xixia and Yuan sixteen countries. There are more than 500 caves with murals and painted sculptures, including more than 45,000 square meters of murals and more than 2,000 painted sculptures in the Yuan Dynasty. These murals and colorful sculptures are full of skill and imagination. They are a huge treasure house of existing Buddhist art in the world and one of the longest, largest and richest Buddhist galleries in the world.
Dunhuang Grottoes are located in a temperate arid climate zone with hot summer and cold winter. The annual precipitation is less than 100 mm, and the vegetation is sparse, surrounded by undulating desert landscape of temperate desert vegetation type.
196 1 year, People's Republic of China (PRC) and the State Council announced Dunhuang Grottoes as national key cultural relics protection units. From 65438 to 0987, Dunhuang Grottoes were officially listed as cultural heritage in the World Heritage List by UNESCO.
cultural heritage
Dunhuang grottoes art is a three-dimensional art integrating architecture, sculpture and painting. On the basis of inheriting the fine traditions of the Han nationality in the Central Plains and the brotherly nationalities in the Western Regions, ancient artists absorbed and integrated foreign expressions, and developed into Buddhist works of art with local characteristics in Dunhuang, China, which provided valuable materials for the study of ancient China's politics, economy, culture, religion, ethnic relations and friendly exchanges between China and foreign countries, and was a cultural treasure and spiritual wealth of mankind.
There are 492 paintings and colored sculptures in more than 500 caves in architectural art, including Zen caves, palace caves, pagoda caves, dome caves, "shadow caves" and some pagodas. The largest grottoes are more than 40 meters high and 30 meters wide, and the smallest grottoes are less than one foot high.
The Central Tower is a foreign grotto form preserved in the early days, which reflects that ancient artists assimilated foreign art while accepting it, making it a national form in China. Many of them are masterpieces of existing ancient buildings.
Colored Sculpture Art Colored Sculpture is the main body of Dunhuang art, including Buddha statue, Bodhisattva statue, disciple statue, heavenly king, King Kong, Lux, God and so on. Color plastic forms are rich and varied, including round plastic, floating plastic, shadow plastic and good plastic. The maximum height is 34.5 meters, and the minimum is only 2 cm (Shan Ye clay sculpture and wood carving), which is rich in themes and exquisite in craftsmanship, and can be called the Buddhist colored sculpture museum.
The portrait sculpture in Cave 17 in the Tang Dynasty is abhorrent to the unification of Hexi Capital, and the statue is painted with staff near the waiter, which integrates the statue with the mural. It is one of the earliest realistic portraits of eminent monks in China and has high historical and artistic value.
Mural art The grotto murals are rich and colorful, and various Buddhist stories, landscapes, pavilions and other architectural paintings, landscape paintings, flower patterns, flying Buddha statues and various scenes made by working people at that time are artistic representations of folk customs and historical changes from the Sixteen Kingdoms to the Qing Dynasty 1500 years.
In a large number of mural art, it can also be found that ancient artists absorbed the advantages of ancient art in Iran, India, Greece and other countries on the basis of nationalization, which is a symbol of the developed civilization of the Chinese nation.
Murals in different dynasties showed different painting styles, which reflected the political, economic and cultural conditions of China's feudal society. They were a glorious chapter in the ancient art history of China and provided precious graphic historical materials for studying the ancient history of China.
In the 26th year of Guangxu reign of Dunhuang Art (A.D. 1900), about 50,000 scriptures, documents, embroideries, portraits, etc. from Wei Jin to Northern Song Dynasty were found in the northern wall of Cave 16. In addition to written documents in Chinese, written documents in Park Jung Su, Baltic, Huigu, Tubo, Sanskrit, Tibetan and other national languages account for about one-sixth. The contents of documents include religious documents, literary works, contracts, account books, official documents and letters.
The discovery of Dunhuang art is famous at home and abroad, and it is of great research value to supplement and sort out the ancient documents in China.
Mogao Grottoes are Buddhist caves and temples excavated in China from the Sixteen Kingdoms to the Yuan Dynasty. They are located at the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain, 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang City, Gansu Province. The Mogao Grottoes are dug on Sanxing Mountain, with a length of1680m from north to south. There are more than 750 caves, 40,000-50,000 square meters of murals, more than 3,000 colored sculptures and five wooden eaves with a height of L5-30m. The Mogao Grottoes are large in scale and rich in content. They are treasures in the history of China's culture and art, and also a bright pearl of ancient oriental culture and art. In l96l, People's Republic of China (PRC) * * * and the State Council were announced as national key cultural relics protection units.
The long history of excavation
In l39 BC and 1l9 BC, Zhang Mei made two missions to the western regions, which opened the "Silk Road" across the Asian continent and connected the cultural and economic exchanges between China and the West. Dunhuang is located at the transportation hub of the Silk Road, where eastern and western cultures meet, which greatly promotes its prosperity. "Teaching" means "greatness" and "brilliance" means "prosperity".
Buddhism was introduced into the mainland from the western regions through Dunhuang. The excavation of the Mogao Grottoes began in 366 AD. During the Sui Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty, the excavation of Mogao Grottoes reached its peak. By the time of the Song Dynasty, Xixia in the northwest was still pretending to be deaf and dumb. At this time, the Mogao Grottoes lost the important role of the Silk Road on land and had declined due to the economic depression. After the yuan dynasty, it was not dug, and it was gradually ignored and abandoned, and little known.
The discovery of Mogao grottoes
During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, people paid attention to the Mogao Grottoes. In the 26th year of Guangxu (l900), Taoist Wang Yuanzhuan stumbled upon the Cave of Tibetan Scriptures, in which more than 40,000 documents, scrolls and cultural relics of past dynasties were preserved. This discovery is called the most valuable discovery in the history of world culture in this century. It caused a sensation in the world. As a result, adventurers from Britain, France, Japan, Russia, the United States and other countries have come to steal the treasures and cultural relics of the Mogao Grottoes. 1943, the Mogao Grottoes were nationalized, and the Dunhuang Art Research Institute was established, and the protection and research of the Mogao Grottoes began.
A precious treasure house of art
The essence of Mogao Grottoes is colored sculptures and murals. There are more than 3,000 colored sculptures, the big Buddha statue is more than 30 meters high, and the small colored sculptures are only a dozen centimeters high. If the murals are connected according to their own height, they are as long as 30 dry meters, including Buddhist stories, changes, statues, sacrificial portraits, decorative patterns and so on. Its historical evolution lasted 1000 years from the Sixteen Kingdoms to the Yuan Dynasty. Among them, the number of works in Sui and Tang Dynasties accounted for more than half. The mainstream of ancient art in China is Buddhist art, and the inevitable products of the spread of Buddhism are Buddhist statues and murals. Unfortunately, due to the destruction of nature and man-made, many Buddhist works of art can no longer be seen today. Dunhuang is located in the desert of northwest China, where the climate is dry and inaccessible after the decline, so the painted murals are well preserved, allowing us to see the brilliant masterpieces of Buddhist art in its heyday that are difficult to see in other places. This is the reason why Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes occupy an extremely prominent position in the history of art.