Mogao Research Articles

Materialized Wishes: Long Banner Paintings from the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang

This paper explores the religious function and meaning of long banner paintings from Cave 17 of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, in conjunction with material culture in Northwestern China in the ninth and tenth centuries CE. The so-called forty-nine-chi banners have peculiar traits such as extremely long lengths, an optional triangular headpiece, and a paired or single strip of textile on which a series of standing bodhisattvas are painted. The author focuses on the large number of textiles used for such banners and questions how the extraordinary length and material used contributed to fulfilling the donor’s wishes. By examining both the banners’ physical characteristics, such as the type of textiles, pigments, and configurations, and the theological background based on the Buddhist and Daoist scriptures about longevity, repentance, and healing, the author suggests that the long banners are a materialized form of longevity and prosperity by physically lengthening the banner with multiple bolts of silk. This paper further argues that depicting multiple bodhisattvas in a pictorial form on a long strip of textile was regarded equally as a powerful means for obtaining good health, prolonging life, eliminating sins, and thus being reborn in the Pure Land.

The biodeterioration outbreak in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes analyzed for the microbial communities and the occurrence time by C-14 dating

Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 1987, suffers from microbial colonization and deterioration of the wall paintings with the visible appearance of black spots and microbial biomasses in selected caves. In this study, next-generation sequencing (NGS) and microscopy analyses were combined to reveal the microbial community composition responsible for the biodeterioration. Results of scanning electron microscope (SEM), fluorescence microscopy, and polarizing microscopy showed that the existing microbial hyphae related to biodeteriorations were inviable. The dominant bacteria included Rhodococcus and Ralstonia, while Aspergillus species were the predominant fungi in samples of the black spots and microbial biomasses. In addition, radioactive 14C dating was applied to determine the possible infestation time of the fungal outbreak based on Bayesian chronological modeling. The original mural was most likely painted in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (939–942 ca. AD), while the repainting time of the mural was most probable during the Song Dynasty (1002–1014 ca. AD), and the microbial biomasses were most likely formed in this historical period. With monitoring locations closer to the cliff, the higher bacterial diversity and lower fungal diversity detected were correlated with the higher relative humidity. Since the temperature and relative humidity are generally low in this area, being unsuitable for microbial growth presently or in the normal time of the past, either earthen plaster preparation before painting or heavy rainfall events combined with a leaky roof were most likely the initiators of the outbreak of the indigenous microbes on the wall paintings. This study provides useful evidence concerning the microbial community and the timing of microbial outbreak events on ancient wall paintings in such extremely arid climate conditions.

Concentrations, sources, and influential factors of water-soluble ions of atmospheric particles in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, a world heritage site in China

Concentrations, sources, and influential factors of water-soluble ions of atmospheric particles in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, a world heritage site in China

The Research on the Origin and Communication of Blue and Green Colors in Chinese Blue and Green Landscape Painting

Blue and Green landscape painting is an important component of Chinese landscape painting. The purpose of this paper is to explore the origins of blue and green colors in blue and green landscape painting and search for the reasons for the establishment of the blue and green landscape painting's style. Today's many researchers identify the murals of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves as the original form of Chinese Blue and Green Landscape Painting, and the Mogao Caves' painting style was significantly influenced by Indian Buddhist art. This paper employs a research approach that compares the stylistic convergence of early Chinese and Western Buddhist artworks. By combining the study of the trade history of the Silk Road, which helped spread Buddhism, and analyzing the origins of blue and green pigments, this paper finds that the use of blue and green colors showed signs that they spread with Buddhist art. The conclusion is that the earliest blue and green color in Chinese Blue and Green Landscape Painting originated from the Buddhist art in the western part of China and spread with Buddhism to the east China.

From Earth to Heaven

This paper investigates the architectural turn of the largest Buddhist cave complex in late-medieval Dunhuang (in Northwest China) with a focus on the contemporaneous exterior structures. The structures include timber facades that cover the caves’ antechambers cut out from the vertical cliff, timber-structured ante-halls on the ground, and earthen shrines and pagodas on the cliff top. These exterior structures, albeit mostly non-extant, constituted the comprehensive built environment of the Mogao cave site. This paper first overviews the diversity of exterior structures through a theoretical reconstruction of several building types including gable-sided facades, eave-sided facades with baosha-dormers, and compound architecture comprising a double-or-triple-level pavilion-like facade and a cliff-top shrine. I then look into one of the three zones where the multiple façade types congregate. The three zones, namely, cave cloisters centered around the Southern and Northern Colossal Buddha Caves and “the Three-Story Pavilion,” defined and redefined the appearance of the mile-long complex by means of vertical extension against the pre-existing horizontal passageways and skylines. As the paper argues, the exterior structures were a collective attempt to transform the cave site into a palatial complex amid mountains, which was motivated by a longing for synchronizing the earthly and the heavenly realms.

Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves

Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves

The Image Narration of Jataka: Analysis of The Deer King Survana in Cave 257

The Jataka of the Deer King Survana is one of the vital themes of Dunhuang frescos, which display the combination of Buddhism visual art and Chinese traditional art. The paper compares the differences between the fresco on the west wall in Dunhuang Cave 257, the relief at Bharhut in India, and the murals in Kizil Grottoes by analyzing the distinctive compositions and the adaptions of sutras, and speculates the function of frescos in Dunhuang.

Re-Empowerment of Intangible Cultural Heritage under the Meta-Cosmos: The Case of Dunhuang Cave Art

Intangible cultural heritage in Dunhuang cave art is now suffering from a lack of interest feedback, insufficient social awareness, and insufficient media utilization leading to difficulties in transmission and non-transmission; this article argues whether the concept of metaverse can be combined with new media forms to re-empower Dunhuang cave art, exploring its possibilities and expecting methods of implementation. The article is based on a desktop research methodological argument to explore the empowerment of Dunhuang cave art in the context of the metaverse, which explores and builds a worldview of NFT heritage in the metaverse world and obtains offline experiences such as cultural and creative products, offline cave experiences, and NFT cultural exchanges by combining the virtual world of NFT collections, virtual tours, and virtual learning of NFT techniques in exchange for tokens. We are willing to break the barrier between reality and virtual, link the stagnation and empowerment of NFT culture. The article concludes that it is feasible and reasonable to realize the empowerment of intangible cultural heritage under the Meta-Cosmos.

A Comparative Study on The Localization of The Creation of Dunhuang Cave Temples from The Perspective of Typology and Its Protection Suggestions

As an important variant of Chinese classical religious architecture, compared with the Indian Ajanta Caves as its prototype, the Dunhuang Cave Temple has undergone considerable localization in the independent evolution of the millennium, which is reflected in the embodiment of the central tower and the The shape of the top of the bucket, the gradually decentralised traffic flow and the subject matter of the paintings. This paper attempts to analyze this from the perspective of typology combined with the shape and fresco style of some of the Mogao Grottoes, and further discusses some feasible measures for the protection of relevant cultural relics.

The Application of Artificial Intelligence Technologies in Digital Humanities: Applying to Dunhuang Culture Inheritance, Development, and Innovation

This article will focus on the relationship between Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence and will discuss the methodology of applying Artificial Intelligence in Digital Humanities; specifically, the article will target the applications in Dunhuang culture studying. The development of digital humanities facilitated by computers and the future research direction will be studied. The article aims to propose specific methods of applying Artificial Intelligence to Digital Humanities to facilitate the inheritance, development, and innovation of traditional culture. By sorting out the development process of digital humanities and combining it with the newest development direction of Artificial Intelligence forecasted by specialists in the area, the study will discuss the possible applications of the technologies in intangible cultural heritage studies. The methods include utilizing Smart Data to obtain structured and visual cultural heritage, implying Cross-media Intelligence to help reconstruct and propagate culture, and using Human-machine Association for the renovation and recreation of cultural heritage. Additionally, the specific methods of applying these methodologies to Dunhuang culture studying will be discussed, whose object is to realize natural language analysis, image style transfer using Smart Data, build digital museums using VR and AR, and restore murals in Mogao caves using Human-machine Association. The effects of these techniques on cultural heritage and its future development methodology will also be discussed.

Artificial Intelligence for Dunhuang Cultural Heritage Protection: The Project and the Dataset

In this work, we introduce our project on Dunhuang cultural heritage protection using artificial intelligence. The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in China, also known as the Grottoes of the Thousand Buddhas, is a religious and cultural heritage located on the Silk Road. The grottoes were built from the 4th century to the 14th century. After thousands of years, the in grottoes decaying is serious. In addition, numerous historical records were destroyed throughout the years, making it difficult for archaeologists to reconstruct history. We aim to use modern computer vision and machine learning technologies to solve such challenges. First, we propose to use deep networks to automatically perform the restoration. Through out experiments, we find the automated restoration can provide comparable quality as those manually restored from an archaeologist. This can significantly speed up the restoration given the enormous size of the historical paintings. Second, we propose to use detection and retrieval for further analyzing the tremendously large amount of objects because it is unreasonable to manually label and analyze them. Several state-of-the-art methods are rigorously tested and quantitatively compared in different criteria and categorically. In this work, we created a new dataset, namely, AI for Dunhuang, to facilitate the research. Version v1.0 of the dataset comprises of data and label for the restoration, style transfer, detection, and retrieval. Specifically, the dataset has 10,000 images for restoration, 3455 for style transfer, and 6147 for property retrieval. Lastly, we propose to use style transfer to link and analyze the styles over time, given that the grottoes were build over 1000 years by numerous artists. This enables the possibly to analyze and study the art styles over 1000 years and further enable future researches on cross-era style analysis. We benchmark representative methods and conduct a comparative study on the results for our solution. The dataset will be publicly available along with this paper.

Uncovering the Secrets of a New Archaeological Case at Dunhuang—A Textual Study on the Newly Found Qianzi Wen Written on the South Wall in Mogao Cave 9

Uncovering the Secrets of a New Archaeological Case at Dunhuang—A Textual Study on the Newly Found Qianzi Wen Written on the South Wall in Mogao Cave 9

Gender recognition of Guanyin in China based on VGGNet

Gender transformation of Guanyin (Avalokitesvara in India) in China is an intrinsically fascinating research topic. Besides the inner source from the scriptures, literatures and epigraphs, iconological analysis is usually as the external evidence of Guanyin’s gender recognition. However, the ambiguous gender of the Guanyin image is often intentional and can be objectively assessed. Can computer vision be applied to the recognition objectively and quantitatively? In this paper, VGGNet (VGGNet is a very deep convolutional network for large-scale image recognition proposed by Visual Geometry Group of Oxford University) is applied to propose an automatic gender recognition system. To validate its efficiency, abundant experiments are implemented on the images of Dazu Rock Carvings, Dunhuang Mogao Caves, and Yungang Grottoes. The following conclusions can be made according to the quantitative results. Firstly, VGG-based method can be effectively applied to the gender recognition on non-Buddhist and Buddhist images. Compared with five classical feature extraction methods, VGG-based method performs not much better on non-Buddhist images, but superior on Buddhist images. Furthermore, the experiments are also carried out on three different training datasets, real-world facial datasets, including CUHK (CUHK is a student face database of Chinese University of Hong Kong). IMFDB (IMFDB is an Indian movie face database.) and CAS-PEAL (CAS-PEAL is a Chinese face database created by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) with varying pose, expression, accessory, and lighting (PEAL). The unsatisfactory results based on IMFDB indicate that it is not valid to apply Indian facial images as a training set to the gender recognition on Buddhist image in China. With the sinicization of Buddhism, there were more Chinese rather than Indian characteristics on Buddhist images in ancient China. The results based on CAS-PEAL are more robust than those based on CUHK, as the former is mainly composed of mature adult faces, and the latter consists of young student faces. It gives the evidence that Buddha and Bodhisattva (Guanyin included) were as ideally mature men in original Buddhist art. The last but the most meaningful is that besides the time factor, the relationship between image making and the scriptures, or the intentional combination of male and female features, the geographical impact should not be ignored when we talk about the gender transformation of Guanyin in ancient China. The gender of Guanyin frescoes in Dunhuang Mogao Caves painted in the Sui, Tang, Five, Song and Yuan dynasties were always with prominent male characteristics (with tadpole-like moustache), while bodhisattvas in Yungang Grottoes engraved in the Northern Wei Dynasty were feminine even though they were made earlier than those in Dunhuang Mogao Caves. It is quite different from the common idea that the feminization of Guanyin occurred in the early Tang Dynasties and completely feminized in the late Tang Dynasty. Both the quantitative results and image analysis indicate that there might be a common model in a specific region, so the image-making of Guanyin was affected much more by geographical rather than temporal factor. In a word, it is quite a complicated issue for the feminization of Guanyin in China.

Role of Cultural Tendency and Involvement in Heritage Tourism Experience: Developing a Cultural Tourism Tendency–Involvement–Experience (TIE) Model

Tourists’ attitudes, especially when searching with a cultural tendency, can influence the tourism experience in cultural heritage tourism. Based on the cultural contact theory and tourist involvement theory, we try to reveal the tie or the relationship between local culture and tourism. Here, we define cultural tendency as the extent to which tourists positively intend to learn about the culture of the destination. Then, we examined the roles of cultural tendency, involvement, tourist experience, and satisfaction in heritage tourism and proposed a tendency–involvement–experience (TIE) model. Using a questionnaire with tourists in Mogao Caves, a world heritage site, we found that cultural tendency through involvement enhanced tourism experience and satisfaction. Moreover, the tendency of different cultures had various effects on tourists’ experiences. Prior knowledge did not play a moderating role on the relationship among cultural tendency and involvement. The findings underscore the importance of cultural tendency in creating experiences, and heritage tourism must address tourists’ preferences for a better experience.

Analysis of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Murals - Takes the Mural Analysis of the Sui and Tang Dynasties as an Example

Analysis of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Murals - Takes the Mural Analysis of the Sui and Tang Dynasties as an Example

A Disease Outbreak on Wall Paintings of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Analyzed for the Microbial Community Composition and the Occurrence Time by C-14 Dating

A Disease Outbreak on Wall Paintings of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Analyzed for the Microbial Community Composition and the Occurrence Time by C-14 Dating

Perception of the Mogao Caves’ Art Heritage in Republican China (1911–1949): From Obscurity to National Treasure

This paper examines the history of the re-discovery of the Mogao murals and how the public’s perception of their artistic value changed over the course of the first half of the 20th century. The analysis of primary sources shows that the evolution of that perception coincided with the shift in the understanding of art, national identity, and history in China. The cave-temple complex of Mogao in Dunhuang (Gansu province, China) contains more than a thousand cliffside caves which were excavated and decorated between the 4th and 14th centuries C.E. The murals and sculptures in these caves demonstrate a unique multicultural exchange that took place along the Silk Road trade routes for a millennium. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Mogao complex had fallen into neglect. In 1899, the Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovered a “library-cave” with thousands of manuscripts and fragments of paintings. The encounter of Chinese intellectuals with manuscripts from the library cave in the 1900s launched the beginning of the Dunhuang studies, which for the next few decades remained highly text-oriented. After the Qing empire fell in 1911, the public associated the Mogao complex primarily with the looting of cultural relics by “foreign imperialists.” It was only towards the end of the 1930s that the intellectuals of Republican China became interested in the murals. This interest grew into a series of expeditions led by Chinese artists and archaeologists. Multiple exhibitions of copies of the murals introduced the art of Dunhuang to the Chinese public, and by the time of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, they had become a national cultural symbol.

The Connection between Dunhuang Grottoes Painting and Thangka in the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty

From 786 to 848 AD, Mogao caves newly excavated 57 caves, plus Yulin Grottoes No.15 and No.25 in Anxi County, The Western 1000-Buddha Cave No.15, a total of 60 caves, mural themes are richer than the previous generation in the past 60 years, the Dunhuang mural paintings have been painted the most, the image of mandalas has increased, and many new portrait paintings, screen paintings and Tubo costumes have appeared. The Sutra-illustrations in the Dunhuang murals are similar to the Thangka composition, and the mandala diagram is closely related to the Thangka theme. Dunhuang grotto painting in the middle and late Tang Dynasty is closely related to Thangka, and the painting has a deep origin.

Research on Relationships between the Pigment of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Frescoes and Ecological Microorganism

Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is one of the largest art treasures in the world. She has a large number of murals, sculptures, beautiful and vivid; There are precious Buddhist scriptures, documents, noble and elegant. Spanning more than 1,600 years, the Mogao Grottoes show the world the extensive and profound Chinese culture with a long history. But over time, the murals in the Mogao Grottoes have also changed a lot. Thousands of years of wind and rain erosion, changes in the surrounding environment, and the influence of various biological communities have caused serious color changes and fading of murals in Mogao Grottoes. To slow down the color change of Dunhuang frescoes, protection measures should be taken from the perspective of ecological microorganisms. At present, Cladosporium, Planococcus, Phoma, Chaetomium, and other strains have caused serious discoloration or discoloration of murals to a certain extent. This paper studies the main color of Dunhuang frescoes, red, and summarizes the discoloration factors and mechanism of red lead. On this level, one should try to keep the murals and control the indoor temperature. Humidity, people, and other factors slow the fading of the murals. But these are often insufficient to protect the integrity of the murals, so we have conducted a review of the literature to provide an updated overview of the available evidence on the subject.

Computing for Chinese Cultural Heritage

Implementing computational methods for preservation, inheritance, and promotion of Cultural Heritage (CH) has become a research trend across the world since the 1990s. In China, generations of scholars have dedicated themselves to studying the country’s rich CH resources; there are great potential and opportunities in the field of computational research on specific cultural artefacts or artforms. Based on previous works, this paper proposes a systematic framework for Chinese Cultural Heritage Computing that consists of three conceptual levels which are Chinese CH protection and development strategy, computing process, and computable cultural ecosystem. The computing process includes three modules: (1) data acquisition and processing, (2) digital modeling and database construction, and (3) data application and promotion. The modules demonstrate the computing approaches corresponding to different phases of Chinese CH protection and development, from digital preservation and inheritance to presentation and promotion. The computing results can become the basis for the generation of cultural genes and eventually the formation of computable cultural ecosystem Case studies on the Mogao caves in Dunhuang and the art of Guqin, recognized as world’s important tangible and intangible cultural heritage, are carried out to elaborate the computing process and methods within the framework. With continuous advances in data collection, processing, and display technologies, the framework can provide constructive reference for building up future research roadmaps in Chinese CH computing and related fields, for sustainable protection and development of Chinese CH in the digital age.