Horizontal flying sky through a thousand years of time - the Tiantishan Grottoes North Cool Flying Sky Mural made a stunning appearance

According to Wuwei Culture, Sports, Radio and Television Tourism:

Wuwei Tiantishan Grottoes, built in the Northern Liang Period during the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, was built successively during the Northern Dynasty, Sui and Tang Dynasties, Western Xia to Ming and Qing Dynasties, with a history of more than 1600 years. After more than a thousand years of changes, after investigation and cleaning in 1959, there are still 18 caves in the Tiantishan Grottoes, which contain statues, murals, and precious cultural relics such as Wei, Sui, Tang and Han Tibetan scriptures and early Tang silk paintings. In 1958, in order to solve the problem of irrigation of 10,000 mu of land in the lower reaches of the Huangyang River, it was decided to build a Reservoir of the Huangyang River near the Tiantishan Grottoes. According to the Calculations of the Reservoir Engineering Agency at that time, after the reservoir was filled with water, all 10 caves in the lower part of the cave group would be submerged in water. In order to save the precious grotto cultural relics, the Gansu Provincial Government decided to relocate and protect the cultural relics of the Tiantishan Grottoes as a whole. More than forty years later, in 2006, in accordance with the spirit of the "restoration of the original site" of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, under the leadership and coordination of the Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, most of the relocated cultural relics of the Tiantishan Grottoes were transferred back to Wuwei City.

In August 2019, Comrade Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, And Ma Yuping, director of the Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, and others investigated the restoration site of the relocated murals in the Wuwei Tiantishan Grottoes.

In October 2015, the tiantishan grottoes relocation murals, painted sculpture protection and restoration project was officially launched. The restoration project was carried out by the Cultural Relics Protection Technical Service Center of Dunhuang Research Institute. "Wuwei Tiantishan Grottoes Relocation Mural Painted Sculpture Restoration Project" completed the restoration of surface diseases, mural fragments splicing, heavy mural removal and restoration, color sculpture splicing and other restoration work in the relocation of Tiantishan Grottoes, with a restoration mural area of more than 300 square meters and more than 70 statues. In the process of restoration, the murals of the Tiantishan Grottoes strictly follow the principle of "not changing the original state of cultural relics and minimal intervention", and all the murals have been professionally treated by more than a dozen processes such as stain removal, pigment layer reinforcement, and ground battle layer reinforcement, and finally achieved the purpose of "re-giving new life" to the murals. In October 2020, some of the relocated cultural relics of the restored Tiantishan Grottoes were exhibited in the special exhibition of Wuwei City Museum with the theme of "Tianti Shenyun Liangzhou Foguang".

Relocated murals and statues from the Tiantishan Grottoes after restoration

In the process of mural painting restoration, a small number of early heavy murals were uncovered and restored, once again unveiling the mystery of the early murals of the Tiantishan Grottoes. One of the most representative is the curved Northern Liang mural located on the edge of the first level tower pillar on the back of the center column of Cave 4, with an area of about 0.6 square meters. In this mural, there are three figures from the bottom up: the lowest body is mutilated, only the eyes to the top of the head are left; the middle one is a kneeling bodhisattva image; and the upper layer is a horizontal flying image. The painting style of the entire mural is exactly the same as that of the Beiliang mural discovered in this cave in 1960, and the three figures have adopted the "convex and concave painting method", and their eyebrow bones and upper eyelids are stained with white dots, thus forming a clear three-dimensional effect. From the perspective of the painting technique of the mural, whether it is the color and smudge of the skin of the face of the character, or the iron line drawing that shows the contours of the body and the folds of clothing, it has reached a very high level.

Uncover the restored Northern Cool Arc-shaped heavy mural

The horizontal flying image in this mural is the most complete Northern Liang flying mural found and restored in the Tiantishan Grottoes. The hairstyle, facial features, face shape, chest ornaments, glitter, shawls, long skirts and other cloaks and dresses of this flying body are basically the same as the standing bottle bodhisattva unveiled in 1960, the difference is that the bodhisattva is more elegant and calm and slightly slender and weak, while this flying body gives people a bulky and rough feeling. The drapery and streamer of the flying sky are the same as those of the Bodhisattva of the Bottle, and the long skirt tied underneath is also blue-blue. The flying head is inward, the feet are outward, although the waist is slightly bent downwards, but it is completely like a bodhisattva lying horizontally on the upper part of the niche, plus a slightly clumsy body, without any feeling of light flight. Compared with the flying sky of other grottoes in the late stage, which is light and fluttering, flying in the air, it is even more different. The whole flying sky, whether it is online drawing, coloring, smudge, shape, as well as looks, moods and other aspects are very skilled, giving people a clumsy feeling, reproducing the unique characteristics of early Buddhist mural art.

In the process of unveiling, protecting and restoring the Beiliang murals of the Tiantishan Grottoes, the birth of this early flying sky of beiliang provides us with wonderful physical materials for the study of early Buddhist art, which is not only a major achievement in the restoration of the painted murals of the relocation of the Tiantishan Grottoes, but also a major discovery in the archaeological research work of the grotto temples in China.

Written by: Cai Jianhong

Source: Tiantishan Grottoes

Tiersan Grottoes