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Dunhuang Treasures Come to Beijing for Public Show
Have you dreamed of visiting the art treasure house at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang but worried to much about costs and remoteness?
Here now is an opportunity to turn your dream into reality, worry-free, in Beijing.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Library Cave of Mogao Grottoes, an art show at the National Museum of History will show relics from this natural piece of work in Gansu Province.
Called the Grand Dunhuang Art Show, the exhibit will show at the National Museum of History in Beijing today.
The show is sponsored by the Gansu People's Government, the State Bureau of Cultural Relics, the Dunhuang Research Institute and the National Museum of History. It will run through August 31.
A century ago, a Taoist monk named Wang Yuanlu accidentally found the hidden library in Cave 17 of the Mogao Grottoes, which are in Dunhuang, some 2,100 kilometres from Beijing.
The library contained about 50,000 ancient documents, Buddhist sutras, arts and crafts.
Carved between the fourth and 14th centuries, the 492 well preserved caves of Mogao Grottoes rest behind 45,000 square metres of murals. They are a valuable source of information on 1,000-year period's architecture, science and culture, foreign contacts and lifestyle of Chinese society.
The caves were mostly abandoned before Wang's discovery of Library Cave, which brought Dunhuang art back into the limelight, raised scholarly interest and touched off an international treasure rush.
The show results from two years of preparation, noted Fan Jinshi, director of the Dunhuang Research Institute. "Different from any other Dunhuang art show in the past, this is of the highest standard and has gathered the cream of the Dunhuang art,'' Fan said.
Exhibits on display include four real-sized duplicate caves and meticulous hand-copied drawings by many past and present art masters, some of whom have passed away or quit drawing because of their advanced age.
Some of the hand-copied works have significant value in the preservation of Dunhuang art because they appear much clearer than the real murals, which have become increasingly vulnerable to damage caused by natural elements and booming tourism.
"Though the grottoes and wall paintings are unmovable, people can also get a true understanding of Dunhuang art by appreciating the copies, which represent a half century of efforts by our artists,'' Fan said.
The show also features documents, scrolls and relics discovered in Library Cave and preserved in different museums. Most of the relics are being shown to the public for the first time.
The exhibits also include 10 painted sculptures and 39 silk paintings by the artists from the Dunhuang Research Institute.
In addition, photos at the show depict the history of Library Cave and the lost Dunhuang relics.
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