Chinese Treasures at the Getty Center

“Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road” is a Getty exhibition the likes of which you’ve never seen

If you ever find yourself in northwestern China, wandering along the edge of the Gobi Desert on the old Silk Road (a formerly busy thoroughfare not unlike our Route 66), you may chance upon Dunhuang, originally a frontier outpost for the Chinese empire.

By the late 4th century, Dunhuang (which translates to “blazing beacon”) was already a vibrant oasis settlement along the famous trade route that covered a 4,000 mile stretch and connected China with India, Persia, and central Asia, and indirectly with the Roman empire. It dates back before the time of Christ, so you know there’s a lot of history involved.

Caravans that headed west were laden with silk and furs, as well as ceramics, jade, and spices. From the other direction, heading east, merchants sent linen, ivory, gems and gold (mostly, there were middlemen involved as few merchants traveled the entire distance). Needless to say, in addition to often inhospitable terrain there were bandits and other hooligans.

In the Dunhuang region, however, there were three sites with Buddhist shrines, each with a nearby stream, fields and tall cliffs that were, according to Cave Temples of Mogao, “suited to the cutting of meditation niches and cave temples.” The one nearest to Dunhuang is Mogao, about 20 miles distant, and the cliff where it is situated is a little over a mile and a half long.

Okay, and what’s so great about that? Well, during the late 4th century the first of what would amount to about 1,000 caves over the next millennium were dug into the cliff face. These caves were part of a monastery complex at Mogao (“Mogao” means peerless, which well describes this World Heritage site). And, of these 1,000 caves, about 500 were decorated, some astoundingly so. Eventually known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, they’ve been called “one of the Silk Road’s great meccas of Buddhist art and culture.” Or, to rub it in a little more, “No other site offers a comparable survey of one thousand years of Chinese and central Asian painting.”

For those who like numbers, or who hope to visualize the enormity of this site, there are altogether 45,000 square meters of murals, or just imagine a painted wall 15 feet high and six miles long.

Some of the caves served as living quarters for the Buddhist monks who lived at Mogao. The paintings that surrounded them were primarily Chinese in style, with Asian, Indian, and Tibetan influences showing up as well. They weren’t created as artworks, per se, but as acts of devotion, their purpose to accumulate merit for a better afterlife.

The actual painting wasn’t done on bare rock. The cave walls were first plastered with clay taken from the nearby riverbed, and mixed with sand and plant fiber. So one must picture relatively smooth surfaces.

The artistry in some of the more spectacularly decorated caves, which include sculptural groups as well, were often sponsored by various groups across the millennium. Periodically, old caves were refurbished, sections of the cave repainted or painted over. Occasionally there were spans of time when devotional fervor peaked and new caves were added and in some cases expanded, even absorbing previously dug caves. The last cave was probably added in the 1350s.

So what happened?

Under the Ming dynasty, the Silk Road was abandoned (replaced by a superhighway elsewhere, which happens to this day) and Dunhuang and other oasis towns fell into disarray and ruin. And then, quietly, over 500 years passed. The Mogao grottoes escaped outside attention until Wang Yuanlu, a Daoist monk, discovered a cache of close to 50,000 documents, or manuscripts, that had been walled up and sealed in what has become known as the Library Cave.

These manuscripts, gathered from a number of Buddhist monasteries in the Dunhuang region, had been hidden in 1006 by Buddhist monks fearing an invasion from Islamic forces. Following the strictures of the Koran against figurative religious art, Islamic invaders had already destroyed paintings and sculptures in Central Asia, and as we see even today they’re still at it. For example, when Cave Temples of Mogao was first published, in 2002 (an updated edition has since appeared), the two great Buddha statues at Bamiyan were still standing. They’re mentioned in the book. A few months later, the Taliban blew them up. And, of course, Palmyra, but let’s not get distracted…

Remarkably, because they were preserved by the dry desert air, even after being bottled up for 900 years, the contents of the Library Cave “proved to be one of the most important finds in the history of archeology.” In addition to scrolls and such there were paintings, embroideries, and various artifacts. Furthermore, without this discovery, “we would hardly believe that this remote site was once a cosmopolitan capital on the great Silk Road.” (All quotes taken from Cave Temples of Mogao)

With good intentions (he wanted money for the upkeep of the cave complex), a few years later Wang Yuanlu sold 7,000 complete manuscripts and 6,000 fragments to Auriel Stein, the first of many archaeologists-explorers hoping to snare some of the treasures for the archives of their own countries.

During the ensuing years, much was taken from Mogao. In many cases, the results were beneficial to all. Texts were carefully translated and notated, the approach to them reverential and scholarly. However, a few sections of wall paintings were removed by overzealous archaeologists. Also, when Berlin was bombed during World War II, a great deal of material from Mogao was destroyed, and then when the Russians occupied the city much more work disappeared.

Apart from that, the wall paintings in situ survived more or less intact. But let’s qualify that. Over time, some of the pigments have oxidized and turned dark. In many cases, paintings have cracked and peeled. Here and there, over the centuries (mostly the recent ones), some vandalism has occurred.

During the last few decades, the biggest threat has been human visitors, even those with noble intentions: All that stomping around, all that humidity that we as a species give off when we crowd into a cave to marvel at its wonders.

Rather peeved that foreigners were making off with portions of its cultural heritage, in 1961 the Chinese proclaimed Mogao a nationally protected site (the World Heritage designation followed in 1987, joining 22 others in China). Before that, however, the Dunhuang Academy was established in 1944. Under the latter’s stewardship the caves have been looked after and their health attended to. But it’s a mighty task, and the latest technological advances have been needed to aid in the conservation of the site. And that’s been the Getty’s big contribution since coming aboard in the late 1980s.

For example, the golden age of Chinese civilization was during the High Tang period of the late 7th and early 8th centuries. The Chinese capital was Chang’an (Xi’an), with a million inhabitants, including 80,000 foreigners. Although there were hundreds of large monasteries in Chang’an, none have survived, and of course whatever wall paintings they contained perished with them. Again we can be thankful for the preservation of the Mogao grottoes because the paintings and what they depict “are reflections from the metropolitan monasteries.”

But how is the Getty, here in Los Angeles, able to convey any sense of all this in their current exhibition, Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road? After all, the caves are carved into solid rock and can’t be picked up and shipped over to America.

Well, yes and no. Replica murals, and replica caves also, aren’t new ideas. Sixteen years ago there were ten full-scale, hand-painted replica caves. I’m not sure if Cave 275 was one of these (the actual cave is one of the earliest survivors at Mogao, dating from the 5th century Northern Liang dynasty), but Dunhuang Academy craftsmen got busy and created at least two more.

As Neville Agnew explains in the Spring 2016 issue of Conservation Perspectives (a publication of the Getty Conservation Institute), “The replica caves, accurate in all detail and significant works of art in their own right, follow the ancient Chinese tradition of copying, or replication, as a means of study and understanding a work of art.”

And so, in what might be called the Madame Tussauds of cave replication, and taking three years to create, the Getty has brought over and installed three caves, or cave experiences. These are situated, from the outside looking like a large quonset hut or an airplane hangar, on the Arrival Plaza of the Getty Center. Where else but in L.A. can you step off a tram and into such an astonishing spectacle? In addition to Cave 275 there’s Cave 285, dating to the 6th century Western Wei dynasty, and Cave 320, an 8th century Tang dynasty cave. Timed tickets allow one into two caves on your visit. Furthermore, Cave 45 (also 8th century) is presented as a 3-D immersive experience in the Lecture Hall of the Getty Research Institute. Clearly, this is an ambitious and inventive exhibition.

However, the meat-and-potatoes of it is contained in the GRI galleries, where some 40-plus objects from Cave 17, the Library Cave, are on display. These items command a certain concentration. As for the replica caves, which are quite a marvel but of course not the real McCoy, each viewer will need to decide for his- or herself if they contain a spiritual essence to accompany the artistic detail. Some things we can evoke and some things, well, maybe not.

Piecing together this exhibition took quite an effort, and coordinated teamwork. Who was involved? Curators Neville Agnew and Marcia Reed from the Getty, Fan Jinshi from the Dunhuang Academy, and Mimi Gardner Gates from the Seattle Art Museum and also the Dunhuang Foundation. The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, East West Bank, the Henry Luce Foundation, and yU+co, are the leading sponsors. China Air flew over the art. The works in the GRI are on loan from the British Museum, British Library, Musée Guimet, and Bibliothèque nationale de France.

A question: Without this splendid show, how many of us would know about the Mogao grottoes and their invaluable contribution to world history? I don’t see many raised hands.

Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road is on view through Sept. 4 at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. Hours, Tuesday through Friday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free, but parking is $15 per car, but reduced to $10 after 3 p.m. See website for related events. (310) 440-7300 or go to getty.edu. ER

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