Ancient China for the modern man

Buddhist sculptures and frescoes from Dunhuang in China’s northwest Gansu province are being replicated using 3D-printing technology.

Ding Xiaohong, who works with the Dunhuang Academy – the institution responsible for preserving and studying the Mogao Grottos, a Unesco World Heritage site, demonstrated the technical process at the recent “12th Five-Year Plan Scientific Innovation Exhibition”.

Also on view were 3D stereoscopic images of the caves and a colouring book the academy has produced based on the flying apsaras seen in the cave frescoes.

Chinese museums are looking for ways to help people relate better to their historical relics. The Palace Museum in Beijing sells more than 8,700 different types of artefact-inspired souvenirs that suit almost every imaginable aspect of daily life – there are even costumes for dogs.

Museum director Shan Jixiang says they earned more than 1 billion yuan (Bt5.3 billion) from souvenir sales last year, with the 2016 Forbidden City calendar alone selling nearly 300,000 copies.

“What matters to a museum isn’t how many visitors it receives but how close it is to its visitors’ daily lives,” Shan says.

As happened elsewhere around the world, colouring books became very popular in China last year. Online retailer Dangdang.com sold 1.5 million copies of “Secret Garden”, which features complicated patterns that people can colour as they relax.

“So we thought, ‘Why not create a colouring book of the Mogao Grottoes?’” says Ding.

The Dunhuang Academy had previously published academic books on the caves and high-priced pictorial books. But with the colouring books, he says, “people can learn about the grottoes by colouring or they can create their own frescoes”.

The academy is now planning more colouring books on the Buddhist figures in the grottoes and the clothing and cosmetics of the people depicted in the frescoes.

“We chose relatively complete frescoes that represent works of each historical period – beautiful ones,” says Ding, whose personal favourite is the flying-apsaras fresco in the No 320 Cave. It’s the first picture in the apsaras book, showing the angels along with the gods and goddesses leading songs and dances.

“This piece from the Tang Dynasty [AD 618-907] is very gorgeous,” he says. “It’s well preserved and has very rich content, like various kinds of musical instruments, including flutes and the pipa [four-stringed lute]. The gestures of the flying apsaras are very beautiful, too.”

A monk named Lezun arrived in Dunhuang in the year 366 and dug the original cave. Over the next thousand years worshippers travelled there and left behind 45,000 square metres of frescoes and 2,000 coloured sculptures in the 735 caves that have been discovered.

The Mogao Grottoes offered a place where people could seek comfort and express gratitude until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), during which Dunhuang was no longer part of the empire.

Buddhism arrived from India, so the early images of the apsaras seem more Indian, but Chinese painters gradually added more local elements to the artwork.

“The earliest images seem very rugged and strong, but in the Tang Dynasty the flying apsaras became very gentle and gorgeous, more in keeping with the modern aesthetic standard,” says Ding.

Dunhuang was an important point on the Silk Road connecting China with the Middle East and Europe. Archaeologists have found Persian silver coins in the grottoes.

The colouring book, edited by Yuan Yawen, contains brief, simple explanations of the origins and evolution of the apsaras and other figures in the frescoes. Most of the 26 illustrations actually come from frescoes that aren’t open to the public.

Yuan says the academy didn’t expect the book to sell well, so the reception has been a surprise. Within a week of its release in mid-May, the complete print run of 10,000 copies had been sold. In all, 25,000 copies were sold within 15 days.

“We’re glad to see that young Chinese love it!” says academy director Wang Xudong.