Culture

Silent wall view of mountains and rivers

2024-03-06   

Dunhuang is located at the westernmost end of the Hexi Corridor. From the Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was an important hub for the transmission of Buddhist culture to the east, as well as a bridge and link for cultural exchange between the Western Regions and the Central Plains of China. Against the backdrop of the intersection of ancient and modern times and mutual learning between the East and the West, it has become increasingly brilliant. As the first director of the Dunhuang Research Institute, Chang Shuhong, once said, "Dunhuang not only maintains the characteristics of ethnic traditions, but also naturally forms a city where Chinese and Western cultures converge due to its location on an ancient transportation route between China and the West." The Hexi Corridor has nurtured advanced culture and production technology, and multiple ethnic groups are gradually merging, exchanging and colliding with each other in Dunhuang, gradually generating Dunhuang art, a cultural treasure of the Chinese nation. Dunhuang art has been enduring for a long time. Over the course of over a thousand years of continuous construction from the 4th century to the 14th century, architecture, sculpture, and murals have jointly built an art treasure trove that blends Chinese and Western cultures, forming a profound and extensive Dunhuang art system. Among them, murals as the main body are even more spectacular. Dunhuang murals are imperial masterpieces in the history of Chinese murals, with a total area of over 50000 square meters. There are over 500 preserved grottoes throughout history, and they have become immortal monuments in art history with their grand scale, exquisite artistic skills, and rich imagination. They are praised as "museums on walls" by both Chinese and foreign academic circles. The early excavation of Dunhuang Grottoes was a period of gradual emergence of Chinese landscape painting, and the accompanying landscapes in its early murals were closely related to the culture of the Central Plains. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, with the increase in the number and scale of cave excavations, Buddhist stories and scripture changes began to emerge and become popular. Craftsmen use their familiar artistic techniques to showcase the content of Buddhist scriptures based on Buddhist scriptures and scriptures. Landscape images have become the background of their paintings, and with the development of life story painting, fate story painting, and Buddhist story painting, they have gradually entered people's vision. Chinese landscape painting is an art form that depicts natural scenery and conveys the thoughts and emotions of creators. Xu Qin once said in "Ming Hua Lu": "Those who can use the spirit of pen and ink to broaden their horizons, and those who strive for uniqueness with creation are like mountains and rivers." Landscape images have also become an important component of Dunhuang murals. According to relevant statistics, among the early Dunhuang grottoes from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Northern Zhou Dynasty, there are more than ten grottoes containing landscape images, including the 251st, 254th, and 257th grottoes of the Northern Wei Dynasty, as well as the 248 and 249th grottoes of the Western Wei Dynasty and the 438th and 461st grottoes of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. In these early cave murals, various landscape elements are abundant, showcasing the form and basic characteristics of early landscape images. In fact, in this type of image lineage, mountains, trees, and other elements are necessary for depicting scenes and rendering atmosphere. These landscape images are also constantly developing and blending with the Central Plains culture. During the Qin and Han dynasties, there were many connections between portrait bricks or tomb murals and the mountains and rocks in the landscape of early Dunhuang murals. In terms of individual mountain and stone shapes, the Dunhuang murals of the Northern Wei Dynasty continued and developed the triangular shape of the Han and Jin dynasties, such as the mountain and stone shapes in Cave 251 of the Mogao Grottoes, "Mountains and Forks", and Cave 257 of the Mogao Grottoes, "Sumati Women's Destiny". In terms of mountain and stone structures, due to the advantage of the brush in drawing detailed structures, the mountain and stone images in murals

Edit:GuoGuo Responsible editor:FangZhiYou

Source:gmw.cn

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