Silk Road murals carefully copied
In the old days, monks and artists painted murals for months and years in grottoes along the ancient Silk Road in China, leading to cultural exchanges. Now young people are following in their footsteps and copying the murals for cultural protection.
Over the past five years, Han Maoyuan has spent most of his time copying murals in grottoes that are mainly located in desert areas in Gansu province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Instead of simply copying the patterns and figures to produce a picture on paper, what Han does is to copy murals on a clay board to make his works look similar to the original as much as possible, including the broken, mottled and ruined parts of original murals.
“These copies are for researchers and visitors who cannot go to the caves,” said the 31-year-old artist.
Many caves he visited house precious murals dating back to more than 1,000 years.
Changes in humidity and temperature in the caves, caused by visitors, can greatly damage the murals as they were painted mainly by mineral pigments.
In some popular grottoes open to the public, such as those in Gansu’s Dunhuang that are home to some of the finest Buddhist art in China, visitors’ stay in a single cave is limited to less than 15 minutes for protection purposes.
“I feel really lucky to have the chance to study these murals at such close distance,” Han said.
However, the opportunity also means many difficulties. Sometimes he has to
work inside a cave for five to seven hours. Han either sits on his knees or squats to paint for hours because some caves are small.
Usually, a grotto is carved into a cliff face — either in a desert or on a mountain.
Han has to walk or climb a long way to reach his destination with a clay board weighing up to 55 pounds.
“I don’t think it’s hard for me. I love mural art and enjoy what I do,” said Han who graduated from the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in 2016.
Before copying murals, he was an ink artist and took part in some mural restoration projects in Xi’an, Shaanxi province.
In 2017, he joined a project organized by the Gongbi Academy of the Chinese National Academy of Arts in Beijing.
The project trains people from museums, art schools and art institutions in copying murals and builds a solid team for relic restoration.
Supported by the China National Arts Fund, the project was launched in 2017 and attracted more than 800 applicants. It selected a team of 40, mostly in their 20s and 30s.
After training in Beijing, Han and his peers went to Xinjiang’s Kizil Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site that was built between the third and eighth centuries. It’s also one of the earliest grotto complexes in China.
Han stayed in Kizil for about two months, producing two murals. The process of muralcopying has two main steps — to identify the shades of colors featured on them with the help of a color chart, and find out how the murals were painted.
According to Han, a mural is like a sculpture and features layers of colors and traces of carving by knives. Murals in grottoes retain all the traces of time and crafts. Han tries to keep the copies alive, too. That’s why one piece takes such a long time to create.
Han once spent four months on a 5.6-feet-tall copy of a mural in Ah-ai Grotto on the top of a mountain in Tianshan Canyon in Xinjiang. The 19-squareyard grotto was found in 1999. It takes driving, walking and climbing to reach the cave.
“I could not take my painting board into the cave since it was too small,” he said.
He said his friends think he has led a tough life in the past five years copying murals in deserts while they enjoyed a city life full of entertainment.
However, the young man said it was worth it. “To some extent, it helped me a lot. My concept of art totally changed.”
Zhang Jian, director of the Gongbi Academy of the Chinese National Academy of Arts, points out that muralcopying itself is a kind of art. It demonstrates not only the true emotion of the copier but also the person’s concept of art.
For Cai Yangcan who took part in the project with Han, copying murals is like a “dialogue” with ancient people and cultures. She can find out the ancient painters’ emotions through lines they drew.
“If you look closely, you can find the original painter was hesitant on one line and firm on the other. You can even tell which painter is better,” said the 30-year-old.
Murals in a cave were often drawn by a group of painters. The murals are not “old and outdated” as some young people think, Cai said, adding that some clothes and jewelry on the Buddha in murals are fashionable and delicately designed. She calls her fiveyear copying experience “spiritual practice”.