Dunhuang

Dunhuang in western Gansu was an important town on the Silk Road in ancient times. The Dunhuang Grottoes include the Mogao Grottoes, the Yulin Grottoes, the West Qianfo Grottoes, and the Lesser Qianfo Grottoes. Of them the Mogao Grottoes are the best known. The Mogao Grottoes or Caves of One-Thousand Buddhas which is situated 25 kilometers southeast of Dunhuang City is a world-famous art treasury, with invaluable murals and sculptures made between the 4th and the 14th centuries. The 5-layer grottoes, carved out of sheer precipices at the eastern foot of the Mingsha Mountain, extend about 1,600 meters from south to north. The earliest carving began in 366. A large grotto complex was gradually created between the Sixteen Kingdoms Period and the Yuan Dynasty. The 492 grottoes that remain today contain 45,000 square meters of murals, over 2,400 painted sculptures, over 4,000 flying apsarses, 5 wooden structures of the Tang and the Song Dynasties, and thousands of lotus-shaped pillars and floral paving tiles. A gigantic, elegant palace of art, the whole grotto complex is the world's largest, best-preserved treasure house of Buddhist scriptures, sculptures, murals, and architectural designs. It has long enjoyed the reputation of being the Bright Pearl of the Oriental Art. The Yulin Grottoes, also called the Ten-Thousand-Buddha Gorge, lie at one key point on the Silk Road, on both of the precipitous stony banks of the Yulin River, 75 kilometers south of Anxi County. The grottoes were first hewn during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317--420), about 1,600 years ago. Now there are 41 grottoes, over 100 painted sculptures, and over 1,000 square meters of murals in existence. They are indispensable component parts of the Dunhuang art. The murals of Grotto No. 25 portray plump, healthy human figures, and manifest the aesthetic characteristics of the Tang Dynasty (618--907).

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