Dunhuang Murals

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In the vast desert in Northwest China, there is a small leaf-shaped oasis about 25 kilometers to the southwest of the city of Dunhuang in Gansu Province. This is where the famous Dunhuang Murals were found in the Mogao Grottos. In December 1987, Dunhuang appeared, together with Mount Tai, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors, on UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage List.

Construction of the Mogao Grottos began in 366 and reached a peak in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), but it was not finished until the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). By Emperess Wuzetian's reign in the Tang Dynasty, more than 1,000 grottos had been hewn into mountain slopes there. Today, some7,000 caves with 492 grottos remain extant in Dunhuang. The complex contains the earliest carved grotto in China. No other grottos in China have experienced a longer period of construction and have a richer content. The entire Mogao Grottos extend for 1,600 meters, and are enshrined with more than 50,000 literary documents and 45,000 square meters of murals drawn over a period that encompassed ten dynasties from the Frontal Qin Dynasty (351-394) to the Yuan Dynasty. It also features 245 colored clay sculptures, and five wooden architectural structures of the Tang and Song (907-1279) dynasties. If we put all the murals of the Dunhuang Grottos together, they would form a 25-kilometer painting corridor, which is unique in the world.

The first painter of the Dunhuang Murals was a monk named Lezun. To create paintings on the coarse surface of the rocks, the artists first applied grass and clay on the roofs and walls of the caves and then began painting. Several clay figures were created later to accompany the paintings. The largest mural in the grotto is 40 meters long and 30 meters wide, and the smallest less than one square meter.

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