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Status
The
name Dunhuang originally meant "prospering, flourishing"-- a hint
that Dunhuang must once have been an important city. Its position
at the intersection of two trade routes was what made Dunhuang flourish.
The coming and going of horse and camel caravans carried new thoughts,
ideas, arts and sciences to the East and West.
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 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.
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).
The
Beijing 2000 Dunhuang Art Exhibition shows to Chinese people four
full-size replicas of caves at Dunhuang, copies of 30 murals, ten
copies of figurines, 14 authentic sutras and ten copies of sutras,
six genuine paintings and 44 reproductions, as well as more than
80 photographs of Dunhuang relics preserved both at home and abroad.
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