Masters and Dunhuang
At the National Art Museum of China’s current exhibition, “Inspired by the Murals – Masters and Dunhuang,” visitors not once lay eyes on a centimeter of Dunhuang's more than 45,000 sq. meters of fresco. Instead, the exhibition is as much a celebration of the tradition of reproducing these works as it is a fractured glimpse at Dunhuang itself.

For three quarters of a century, Chinese artists have made pilgrimages to Dunhuang to paint the likeness of the Buddhist frescoes that cover the walls of its 492 known grottoes. After the re-discovery of the grottoes in 1899, the Dunhuang Academy was established, providing specific training and guidelines for reproducing Dunhuang’s treasures. Artists like Li Dinglong and Chang Shuhong devoted their lives to protecting the murals by reproducing them in the 1930s.

The exhibition makes use of these reproductions, the vast majority of which also reproduce the cracked surfaces and fading pigments of the frescoes, to create the illusion that the visitor has entered the grottoes. The reproductions line the walls and ceilings, sometimes in mock life-size reproductions of entire grottoes. Even the museum itself has been sheathed in gigantic plastic prints depicting the grottoes’ facade.

Though some visitors voice disappointment at having not encountered the original works in the exhibition hall, the passion and detail with which these artists have devoted themselves to preserving Dunhuang’s treasures is far more impressive testament to the brilliance of the originals than a few ancient works sheathed behind glass would ever be.

Blake Stone-Banks