ART

THE DUNHAUNG MURALS

a beautiful glimpse into the ancient past

by Beverly Liu 

A magnificent Display

Dunhuang is a significant destination for those seeking to understand the art and culture of China. The Mogao Grottoes are a fine example of the treasures of Dunhuang. The murals in them range up to 45,000 meters and depict the various cultures that have come through Dunhuang throughout its history. Along with the murals, Dunhuang has over 2,000 statues and 60,000 cultural relics that have been unearthed in the Mogao caves. The location has been a gold mine for archaeologists and they are constantly re-excavating and rethinking everything that they find. The murals are a national treasure and besides their incredible beauty, they also give us clues to how people thought and lived at various times in the region. And so, what I want to do is talk about some of the highlights of these murals and what they might tell us about the past.

One of the most interesting figures in the murals are the asparas. They are the Buddhist or Hindu equivalent of fairies and appear in a good deal of them. It’s like looking at renaissance paintings and seeing angels—they’re everywhere and at first glance, not particularly interesting. But we can enter into the thinking of these ancient artists by seeing how they treated these common, seemingly inconsequential figures.

Fig. 1: Apsara Mural

Fig. 2: Apsara Mural

In the early Tang Dynasty, apsaras were merely ornamental figures. If you look at the illustrations above (Fig.1 & Fig.2), you can see two couples flying up into the sky. These pairs of apsaras appear on the west wall of the main chamber in Cave 321 of the Mogao Grottoes. We can also see that when the Buddha speaks, the asparas waft incense, scatter flowers, and play music in the sky.

In the Buddhist celestial kingdom, the apsaras' status is low, really just a supporting role in the cosmogony of Gods. From highest to lowest, seated figures have higher status than standing ones, and standing figures have higher status than flying ones. So, you can guess that the apsaras are low on the totem pole and almost always appear in the corners of the murals. In addition, the apsaras characters have no storylines of their own.

However, precisely because these flying apsaras have no specific meaning in these ancient paintings, they can be completely reimagined by the painter and reflect the creativity of each mural artist. So, what’s interesting is that something that is purely ornamental and not significant to the mural, can become a moment when the artist is free to do what he wants.

Fig. 3 Apasara from the the Northern Liang Period (A.D. 397-439)

From the Northern Liang Period to the Tang Dynasty, the paintings of the flying apsaras changed over time. If you look at the apsaras painting (Fig.3) from Cave275 of the Mogao Grottoes, which dates back to A.D. 397-439, you can see the apsaras depicted as a flying person with round face and strong body. The apsaras wear a crown of flowers, and their arms are draped in long scarves that flutter in the air. Compared with flying apsaras of the earlier Tang Dynasty, the apsaras of the Northern Liang Period are clearly influenced by the culture of the Western Regions and India, and are mainly painted in a primitive and naive style.

We see something radically different emerging thousands of years later where the apsaras are depicted in totally Chinese ways. In the early Tang Dynasty, they have beautiful, slender bodies. They fly through the air with the grace of a swallow. Tang Dynasty’s apsaras are more varied than the previous generation’s, appearing in a variety of sitting, standing, walking and flying positions.

So, you can see that a detail as insignificant as the apsaras can actually give us clues into how these ancient cultures thought and how they imagined the world. In less fanciful murals, we see the depiction of real life, rich people who actually paid for the work to be produced and they provide new ways of understanding the past. “The Buddha drawing of the Governor's wife” in Cave 130 of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is an interesting example.

Fig.4 The drawing of the Governor's wife in the heyday of  the 
Tang Dynasty

This mural was created at the height of the Tang Dynasty. It is 34 cm long and 315 cm across. Due to the long-term burial by quicksand, there was serious moisture erosion. This caused the color to fade and even more serious problems. What people see now are mostly copies of the works of Duan Wenjie (Fig.5) who was the late honorary president of the Dunhuang Academy. This is the largest portrait of the Tang Dynasty benefactors, showing a total of 12 people: the first three are masters, and the rest are slaves.

The artist depicts each person in different ways that show their social status. The depiction of the Governor’s wife is the largest of the three main figures in the mural, and she is larger than any actual person. Her head is decorated with flowers, small combs, and pearls of gold; she wears a blue gown and red skirt. Holding a scarf and a censer in her hand, she gives reverence to the Buddha. Her face is decorated with a twinkle of pearl, and she wears a red gown and a white dress. The second figure is a woman with a phoenix coronet on her head, wearing robes and shoes. The third figure wears a crown of flowers. The other nine people in the painting have no names, so we can assume that they are servants, but each of them has their own distinct hairstyle, which suggests that the whole retinue is of a fairly high class or at least reflects the class of their master.

The Governor's Wife

The figures in this painting are real and full of life. Regardless of status, they all have the characteristics of "bending eyebrows and abundant cheeks", "abundant muscles and cloying body" they’re all beautiful. Each person's face is different: the host is elegant, holding a censer of flowers, hands in a palm salute, showing a respectful and reverent mood. Some of the servants are holding the piano, some are holding water bottles, and some are holding a fan to cover their faces. While some look back and whisper with lively expressions that are in marked contrast to their master's solemn mood.

Looking at this mural makes people feel as if they were traveling back to the spring of the Tang Dynasty more than 1300 years ago. But the murals in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes not only depict the stories and characters of the Buddhist sutras, they also depict the cities of that time.

Fig. 6 Mount Wutai Murals

On display

The Wutai Mountain Map is the largest landscape figure and the largest panoramic historical map of the Dunhuang frescoes. The drawing is 13 meters long and 3.6 meters high, details the terrain and social customs of the mountains and rivers covering a radius of 500 li in the west. There are more than 170 buildings in the picture, such as cities, temples, terraces, pavilions, pagodas, cottages and Bridges, which are very interesting and worthwhile depictions of ancient architecture.

The mural of Wutai Mountains is a kind of landscape painting. From a bird's eye view perspective, it shows the hundreds of miles around Wutai such as rolling hills, roads, monks, pilgrims city walls, temples, grass nunneries, pagodas, and Bridges shops and other so on real life situations. Combining artistic imagination with real life, we see the intermingling of] religious gods and secular figures. From a distance, it looks sacred and solemn, while close up, it feels like a scene from real life.This picture is not only a Buddhist historical painting with rich content, but also a spectacular landscape figure. It’s as if we get the whole of the world here. Like all the murals it is a glimpse into an unknown world.

©Beverly Liu and the CCA Arts Review