"Dun, Daye; Huang, Shengye." Dunhuang was an important hub for the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures on the Silk Road. In the past two thousand years, people of different countries and different nationalities have gathered here along the Silk Road, shaping the unique Charm dunhuang culture, leaving behind the world's largest existing art treasure house, the longest duration, the richest content and the most complete preservation.
In 1900, the dusty Dunhuang Scripture Cave was opened, and the rare treasure of the world that was seen again did not get the attention it deserved. At this time, the Eight-Nation Alliance was raging in China, and Dunhuang also suffered a disaster that was not in time for its own life, and in the decades after the discovery of this art treasure house, it became a "treasure house" at the fingertips of countless robbers and thieves. It has left a wound in China's modern history.
Where there is theft and destruction, there is salvation and protection. A group of guardians have called for the rescue and protection of the cultural relics and art of dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, and they have gone forward to succeed and let Dunhuang regain its life, and it should be remembered by history.
In 1944, the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute was established, ending the nearly 400-year history of the Dunhuang Grottoes that had been unmanaged, damaged, and repeatedly destroyed and stolen. And Dunhuang was eventually properly protected after the founding of New China.
The sad history of our country's scholarship also
Mogao Grottoes at the end of the Qing Dynasty
Mention Dunhuang, can not avoid the Wang Daoist Wang Yuanzhen.
In 1900, Wang Daoshi opened the sealing wall of the 16th cave of dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, and tens of thousands of documents and paper paintings written in various languages, spanning centuries, were revived.
Since then, the Treasures of Dunhuang have attracted a wave of Western explorers who have been plundered in various guises:
In 1907, Stein, the first Westerner to enter the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave, brought 29 boxes, thousands of ancient documents, paintings and embroideries and other precious cultural relics to Britain;
In 1908, the Frenchman Bo Xihe snatched more than 6,000 kinds of documents and more than 200 Tang Dynasty paintings, banners and fabrics from the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang;
Since then, japan's Otani expedition, Russia's Ordenburg, the American Warner... Western explorers, called explorers and thieves, frequently "patronized", and countless Dunhuang treasures were scattered around the world.
Most of the cultural thefts of these Western explorers had transactions with Wang Daoists, such as Stein, who exchanged the price of four horseshoe silver (200 taels) for the opportunity to enter the cave; the price of Bo Xihe was 500 taels; and the Dunhuang murals stripped by Warner were not valued by Wang Daoists, only 75 taels...
Wang Daoshi, who opened the treasure house of Dunhuang, also became a sinner who guarded himself and sold national treasures throughout the ages. In recent years, many people have defended it, in the historical and social environment at that time, Wang Daoshi sold cultural relics because of ignorance, but the money obtained did not fill his pockets, but all invested in the repair and maintenance of the Mogao Grottoes, and guarded Dunhuang all his life.
In the context of internal and external troubles at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the decay of the Qing court, and the unopened wisdom of the people, it is indeed difficult to make a simple evaluation of Wang Daoshi. However, if we talk about the "guardians" of Dunhuang, Wang Daoshi cannot bear the burden of the historical guilt of the large loss of Dunhuang cultural relics, how can we use the word "ignorance"?
In the historical and social environment at that time, the ignorant were not only Wang Daoists.
One thing should be said for Wang Daoshi, who initially did not want to sell Dunhuang cultural relics to foreigners. After discovering the Caves, Rao was a Taoist monk with little culture and knew that they were valuable. At that time, Wang Daoshi had a grand plan, that is, to repair the caves buried by the sand and build a Taiqing Palace. He wanted to use the Tibetan scripture cave to attract the attention of the government and allocate some silver.
Wang Daoshi rushed to the county seat of Dunhuang, 50 miles away, and reported to the county order Yan Ze. Yan Ze didn't learn any techniques and didn't care. Wang Daoshi was not satisfied, and ran to Jiuquan, 850 miles away, to find the Ansu Dao Daotai and the military envoy Tingdong, and sent a box of scripture scrolls.
Ting Dong loves calligraphy and has a high self-esteem. Turning over the scriptures, I felt that the calligraphy on them was not as good as my own writing, but I also knew that it was an antiquity, so I left the scripture scrolls and hastily sent Wang Daoshi back.
Without the attention of the imperial court, Wang Daoshi took out some exquisitely calligraphed Buddhist scriptures and beautiful silk paintings in exchange for meritorious money. Dunhuang's cultural relics have been scattered, but few people care where they come from and whether they have historical, cultural and academic value.
The first person to identify these scriptures and portraits as valuable was Ye Changchi, a late Qing dynasty epigrapher who was then in charge of local education in Gansu Xuetai. The new Dunhuang County Commandery Ordered Wang Zonghan to his liking and gave Ye Changchi some stone tablets and Buddhist scriptures donated by Wang Daoshi.
Ye Chang was a "clear-eyed man". Among the results, there is a Tang Dynasty Tubo stone carving, and The cool tablet version of Ye Changzi wrote in his "Diary of Yuandu Lu": "Poor border and barren debts, buried for more than a thousand years, not first and not later, since the degree of long and the beginning of the manifestation, can be mapped, examined, can not be said to be non-Merlin's good story." The records and studies of the Dunhuang Tibetan Scriptures in the Diary of Yuandu Lu are fragmentary, but because of its earliest time, Ye Changchi also became "the forerunner of Dunhuang Studies".
However, at that time, there was no concept of archaeology in China, and the epigrapher Ye Changzhi's interest was limited to enriching the content of his own books, and he never stepped into Dunhuang. Ye Changchi had suggested that all the cultural relics of the Cave be transported to Lanzhou for safekeeping, but Dunhuang was thousands of miles away from Lanzhou, and the freight was huge. If the superior did not approve it, Ye Changchi also gave up. In 1906, Ye Changchi left his post and returned to his hometown, and since then he has lost contact with Dunhuang. The following year, Stein arrived. Dunhuang had completely lost the opportunity to be protected before the arrival of Western explorers.
The Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Scrolls were officially taken over by the state nine years after their discovery, when most of the essence of the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Caves was taken by Stein and Bo Xihe and grabbed and transported to London and Paris.
In 1909, Bo Xihe came to China again to buy Chinese nationality for the National Library of Paris, and visited Duan Fang, the Governor of Liangjiang and Minister of Nanyang, many times, to show him some of the Dunhuang treasures he carried with him.
DuanFang is the late Qing Dynasty gold stone and collectors, naturally "know the goods", see the Dunhuang treasures in the hands of foreigners, sigh, want to buy back a part from the Bo, was rejected. At the end of June, DuanFang was reappointed as the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, often traveling back and forth between Beijing and Tianjin, and had close contacts with people in Beijing's political science and collecting circles, and the news that Bo xi and Dunhuang had obtained treasures and carried some documents was quickly spread in the capital.
Bo Xihe also arrived in Beijing soon after, living in Babao Hutong, and there was an endless stream of scholars who visited him. Among them was Luo Zhenyu. As a scholar, Luo Zhenyu can be described as a generation of Hongru, not only a master of Traditional Chinese studies, but also a pioneering contribution to Chinese archaeology and agriculture, but Luo Zhenyu was keen on politics, foolishly loyal to the Manchu Qing, and after the collapse of the Qing court, he considered himself a "widow", and later actively participated in the planning of the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo, holding a variety of pseudo-positions.
When he visited Bo Xihe, Luo Zhenyu was a counselor of the Qing Government Faculty and the supervisor of the Agricultural Department of Kyoshi University, and had just returned from a study tour in Japan. When he first saw "ancient books written by the Tang Dynasty and five generations in the Dunhuang Stone Chamber" in Bo Xihe, Luo Zhenyu had a complicated mood and issued a sigh of "extremely gratifying, hateful, and sad". Fortunately, it is still possible to photocopy and copy some Dunhuang materials from Bo Xihe; unfortunately, most of the essence was transported back to France by Bo Xihe. When he heard that there were still 8,000 scrolls in the Dunhuang Stone Room, mainly Buddhist scriptures, he was really "surprised, like a dream".
Fortunately, Luo Zhenyu was not only the most knowledgeable of the early Contact with Dunhuang cultural relics, but also the most actionable.
In order to prevent Yu Jing from being acquired by others, Luo Zhenyu took advantage of his position as counselor of the faculty and supervisor of the agricultural science department of the Beijing Normal University, and immediately asked the faculty to send a telegram to the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, entrusting him to purchase all the remaining volumes and send them to the faculty. Considering the poor economic situation in Gansu, Luo Zhenyu went to Liu Tingchen, the chief supervisor of the Beijing Normal University Hall, and suggested that the University Hall pay for it. Liu Tingchen pushed back with "no such money", and Luo Zhenyu had to promise to the Faculty that "if the university does not have money, it can be purchased by the agricultural science department to save money, otherwise, I can donate all my personal money."
Finally, in November 1910, the Qing Court Academy purchased the remaining nearly 10,000 volumes of the Dunhuang Remnants from Dunhuang. These Dunhuang scrolls were handed over to the Beijing Normal Library (now the National Library of China) for safekeeping. In 1912, the "General Catalogue of Dunhuang Stone Chamber Scriptures" compiled on the basis of these scriptures was completed, and the National Library of China became one of the four major collection institutions of Dunhuang literature.
In 1931, the "Aftermath of the Dunhuang Raid", which was compiled for several years and composed by everyone, came out, and Chen Yinke wrote the preface "Dunhuang People, the Sad History of Our Country's Scholarship".
As Si said, at that time, China's protection of Dunhuang was weak and helpless, and it was in vain sad.
Call for protective measures
In 1925, Warner, whose main goal was the Dunhuang murals, came to China for the second time, and specially brought art experts and technical experts who were good at peeling off the murals from the United States, and prepared to go to Dunhuang again to loot. Only, this time, Warner's party was explicitly listed as undesirable.
Warner's assistant Jayne arrived in Dunhuang early and quickly wrote to him: "After you left Dunhuang last year, the local people were extremely dissatisfied with the transfer of cultural relics, and they launched a frightening public debate, accusing the local sheriff of Dunhuang of accepting bribes to allow you to take away cultural relics and must step down. ”
There was no hope of stealing Dunhuang, and Warner and his party turned to the sister cave of the Mogao Caves, the Yulin Grottoes, and were also strongly protested and obstructed, and all they got was to take some photos of the Yulin Grottoes in a hurry.
The second trip to China was a fiasco in Warner's eyes, "the only tangible things that were brought back were those pictures, most of which were pictures of the very unknown caves that were far inferior to the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang." ”
Dunhuang experts see the failure of Warner's second expedition as "the beginning of China's successful boycott of foreign explorers in northwestErn China," which is certainly good news for Dunhuang, which has experienced many vicissitudes. In particular, the Dunhuang murals finally became artistic treasures in the eyes of the Chinese people shortly thereafter.
The earliest group of Chinese who paid attention to Dunhuang were mostly epigraphers and examiners, and their attention was mostly focused on the documents and scriptures of the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave, so that for a long time when the Tibetan Scripture Cave was discovered, the murals and statues of the Dunhuang Grottoes were not valued, and "the value of Dunhuang in the history of Chinese and Oriental art is little known."
In fact, with the education of these people, as long as they really go to Dunhuang for on-the-spot investigation, it is enough to realize the beauty of Dunhuang. Unfortunately, the "readers" cultivated by these four books and five classics have read "ten thousand books", but they do not have the consciousness of "walking ten thousand miles" for Dunhuang. Since the obstruction of Warner Dunhuang in 1925, this remote area at the westernmost end of the Hexi Corridor has been quiet for a while, and "the Mogao Grottoes have hardly been deliberately approached by scholars and artists."
Dunhuang murals are widely recognized by the Chinese people, largely because of the copying of the famous painter Zhang Daqian. But the first person to copy the Dunhuang murals was not Zhang Daqian.
In the winter of 1938, an expedition to the Mogao Caves, composed of 13 young people and led by Li Dinglong, set out from Xi'an.
Li Dinglong, whose original name was Li Yusheng, was a native of Pigang Village, Xincai Dungang, Henan, who had been poor since childhood, worked as an apprentice in the county town as a teenager, and then went to Shaanxi to break in. After falling in love with the art of painting, Li Dinglong studied in many early art schools in China, graduating from the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts founded by Liu Haisu. It was in this school that Li Dinglong learned about the Yoshimitsu Katayu of Dunhuang art and longed for it. In 1937, when the Japanese army invaded Shanghai, Li Dinglong, who had just graduated, went to Xi'an, so he gathered his classmates and friends to put the trip to Dunhuang into practice.
At that time, the northwest traffic was extremely inconvenient, and the train from Xi'an could only go to Baoji, and then to the west, it could only rely on the ancient means of transportation on the Silk Road - camels. None of the 13 young men had any savings, selling paintings along the way to raise money. They are not famous and have limited income. It was a harsh winter, the northwest desert was windy, and the journey was difficult. When they arrived in Pingliang, the four people could not resist returning to Xi'an. When they arrived at Jiuquan, they saw that they were about to reach Dunhuang, and there were seven more people who "walked a hundred miles and half ninety." In the end, the expedition was left with only Li Dinglong and Liu Fang, whose hometown was in Dunhuang and was equivalent to a guide.
When he arrived in Dunhuang, Liu Fang also went home, and from time to time he could send Li Dinglong some food and daily necessities. Li Dinglong chose to live in a smaller cave in the Mogao Caves. It's easy to keep warm and protects against wild beasts. In this way, Li Dinglong began an 8-month-long copying career.
When he first saw the Dunhuang murals, Li Dinglong was deeply shocked, and the beauty of the Dunhuang murals was finally discovered by a pair of Chinese eyes.
After observing all the murals in the caves, Li Dinglong began to copy the paintings. Immersed in this magnificent treasure trove of art, the copying of a single person has become a huge project.
In winter, the light in the cave is not good, Li Dinglong tries to hurry the painting time around noon, sometimes in order to increase the light in the cave, he also has to use tools such as mirrors, in order to save time and not to run back and forth, he carries the steamed bun with the barley noodles, and stays in the cave for seven or eight hours.
Dunhuang is located in the middle of a desert and is extremely short of water. During the 8 months that Li Dinglong was in the Mogao Grottoes, he rarely washed his face, never bathed, cut his hair, washed his clothes... Soon, he was over-the-shouldered, bearded, and ragged. So much so that the locals regarded him as a "savage" and a "madman". Li Dinglong did not think so, but retained the nickname of "Savage", and many of his later paintings were signed by this.
The process of copying the Dunhuang murals also made Li Dinglong the first to realize the seriousness of the dunhuang murals being damaged by both nature and man. In particular, a large number of cultural relics and works of art in Dunhuang were lost and plundered by Western explorers, and Li Dinglong was heartbroken. Indignant that "the victims of Dunhuang are missing," Li Dinglong wrote to the Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Education, and the Cultural Committee of the Chongqing National Government, and wrote to Yu Youren, Chen Lifu, Zhang Daofan, and other Kuomintang dignitaries, calling for the protection of Dunhuang's cultural relics, sending people to the Mogao Grottoes to inspect and formulate protective measures.
At a time when Japan invaded China and the country was in trouble, Li Dinglong's appeal, although it aroused certain social repercussions, was quickly covered by the war.
After living in Dunhuang for 8 months, Li Dinglong copied more than 100 murals, completed the grand and voluminous "Elysium Map" copying drafts and countless flying, algae well, bergamot patterns and a large number of sketches, returned to Xi'an to sort out or redraw these copied works, and held the "Dunhuang Grotto Art Exhibition" in the winter of 1939, and the viewers were deeply shocked by these exquisite paintings. This was also the first time that Dunhuang art was disseminated by Chinese artists.
At the beginning of 1941, Li Dinglong took the copied paintings to Chongqing and Chengdu and became acquainted with Zhang Daqian, who was living in seclusion on Mount Qingcheng. The two painters met and hated each other late, and Zhang Daqian praised the Dunhuang murals he copied as "wonderful". It was also under the touch of Li Dinglong's imitation of the paintings that zhang Daqian's trip to Dunhuang was promoted.
Two "beards"
Zhang Daqian is copying the mural.
In Zhang Daqian's legendary artistic career, "Lifo Dunhuang" can be said to be the highest peak of his art.
According to Zhang Daqian's self-description of the origin of the trip to Dunhuang, "the first thing was to hear two teachers, Zeng (Nongjie) and Li (Ruiqing), talk about the Buddhist scriptures and Tang statues in Dunhuang, and did not know that there were murals. When he returned to Sichuan after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he heard Ma Wenyan, who had previously served in the Control Yuan, talk about his visit to Dunhuang and try to describe how great it was. I have a good time to visit, know this monument, naturally move faith, and decide to travel in costume. ”
Before seeing Li Dinglong's Dunhuang copy paintings, Zhang Daqian had already made a trip to Dunhuang. It was October 1940, and he set off for Dunhuang with his third wife, Yang Wanjun, and his son. But before he left Sichuan, he got the news of his second brother's death, and Zhang Daqian rushed to Chongqing to mourn.
It was not until March 1941 that Zhang Daqian repacked and went to Dunhuang. Under the guidance of Li Dinglong, this time, Zhang Daqian made full preparations and formed a huge team. In addition to the three people in the first time, there was the second lady Huang Nutinin with her young son, four work assistants, one cook, and two handymen. A group of more than ten people, together with painting tools, paints, various utensils and equipment and basic food, totaled as many as 70 or 80 mule carts, and the west was out of Yangguan.
Zhang Daqian's trip to Dunhuang was very loud, and he himself was a well-known figure, which naturally attracted people's attention. Someone once asked him in person about the purpose of his trip to Dunhuang, and Zhang Daqian said impatiently: "Go copy the murals!" What else is the purpose of the side? When asked who paid for it, he shouted, "My money!" Who will give me money? After that, no one dared to ask him this question in person.
On the night of arriving in Dunhuang, Zhang Daqian entered the nearest large grotto with a flashlight and witnessed the beauty of the paintings on the cave walls. The original plan was to go there to observe for three months, and on the first day he probably looked at some caves, and he said to his wife and nephew: "I'm afraid it is not enough to stay for half a year." In fact, not only half a year, Zhang Daqian's trip to Dunhuang lasted for two years and seven months, and in the middle of the incident, he went to Lanzhou, Xining, Yulin Grottoes and other places, and lived in Dunhuang for a year and a half before and after.
In the early days of Dunhuang, Zhang Daqian's most important job was to number more than three hundred caves.
To this day, people can also see in the Mogao Caves that most of the caves have three different numbers, of which the center is the number of the Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics, C is the number of Zhang Daqian, and the P is the number of Bo Xihe.
Birch and the number are only necessary to cooperate with its expedition and shooting, and the protection and research significance is not great.
Zhang Daqian takes the direction of the water flow of Qilian Mountain, from south to north, from low to high, and then from north to south, from bottom to top, and reciprocates, if the "zigzag" shape, a total of 309 numbers, scientific and clear. In 1964, the Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics carried out a unified numbering of all caves, basically following Zhang Daqian's numbering, but the small caves and ear holes attached to the big caves were numbered separately, and the order of some caves was rearranged, a total of 492 caves, which have been used to this day.
When he first arrived in Dunhuang, Zhang Daqian encountered many difficulties in copying the murals. He once recalled: "In terms of tools, paper silk is not counted in size, and it all depends on the monks to sew." After the stitching is completed, nailed to the wooden frame, applied with glue powder three times, and then ground with a large stone seven times, the canvas is smooth before the pen can be written. ”
The "Fan Monk" in Zhang Daqian's mouth is the five lama painters he hired from qinghai Tar Monastery for a high price of fifty silver dollars per person per month. They are already good at religious murals, not only can sew canvases, but most importantly, they can make the same pigments as Dunhuang murals.
The pigments that Zhang Daqian brought to Dunhuang are mostly modern crafts, those vermilion, indigo, stone blue, stone green, look bright enough, but when painted, they appear gray and dark, and the rich and brilliant tones of the murals cannot be compared. Lama painters, on the other hand, mastered the recipes of ancient mineral pigments. For example, the most used lapis lazuli is imported from Afghanistan or Pakistan. According to Zhang Daqian's recollection, copying the Dunhuang murals, the paint alone is "thousands of pounds".
Most of the Dunhuang Caves are not enough light. Zhang Daqian had to hold a candle in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, and he had to adapt to local conditions, sometimes standing on the ladder, sometimes squatting, and sometimes lying on the ground. Although it is winter, sketching soon, you have to sweat and gasp, dizzy, so hard painting, most days are early in the morning into the cave work, dusk only come out, sometimes have to open night work.
Located in the desert of Mogao Grottoes, the environment is very harsh, there is no water and no vegetables, drinking water must be pulled to a place several kilometers away, and firewood for heating and cooking must be transported from 200 miles away by more than 20 camels. Especially the lack of fresh vegetables, for Zhang Daqian, who pays attention to food, it can be regarded as a bitter end.
However, compared with other explorers and pilgrims, Zhang Daqian, who was already a famous painter and had a wealthy family, had a much better life in Dunhuang. It is said that Zhang Daqian spent 5,000 taels of gold to copy the Dunhuang murals.
There were not many more than ten people in a group, but they opened three stoves of Han, Hui, and Tibet, and each ate according to their habits. In Zhang Daqian's Dunhuang menu, you can see many precious dishes: boiled lamb, honey sauce ham, Yuqian scrambled eggs, abalone stewed chicken, fried chicken slices with tender alfalfa... Meat is more purchased from the local, of course, the price is not cheap, abalone, ham is brought by him, vegetables are rare, because it is difficult to buy with money, you can only use local materials, pick some wild vegetables, young shoots.
In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1941, Zhang Daqian personally cooked and made a table of such "Dunhuang Daqian Dishes" to entertain a distinguished guest, Yu Youren, a kuomintang elder and president of the Supervision Yuan of the National Government.
At that time, the Lanxin Highway was opened to traffic, and Yu Ren personally inspected the northwest. Zhang Daqian received Yu Youyi and his party at the Mogao Grottoes and accompanied them on the tour.
Yu Youren and Zhang Daqian, one is a calligrapher known as the "Grass Saint of the Kuang Dynasty", and the other is a master of Chinese painting, and they both have a long beard, which has similar meanings and has been friends for many years. The two "bearded" who are 20 years apart visit the Mogao Grottoes together, and they are both excited and anxious in the face of the "beautiful and abnormal" and "unparalleled" murals, colored statues, unmanaged and repaired, and the increasingly desolate Mogao Grottoes.
That night, the two drank alcohol on the moon and discussed the value and protection of the Mogao Caves. Zhang Daqian suggested that the state nationalize the Mogao Grottoes and establish relevant institutions to manage, protect and study Dunhuang art. Yu Youren deeply agreed, he proposed the establishment of the Dunhuang Art Academy, hired Zhang Daqian as the dean, Zhang Daqian with "idle habits" to push away, but reached a consensus on the establishment of the Dunhuang Art Academy.
After the end of the Dunhuang delegation, Yu Youren continued to investigate along the Hexi Corridor, and most of the speeches along the way were related to Dunhuang. At the welcome meeting in Lanzhou, Yu Youren stressed, "The pen strength and gesture of the Dunhuang murals are really beautiful and extraordinary, unparalleled, it is a treasure left by the oriental peoples, and it is really necessary to vigorously study and properly preserve it." His repeated appeals have had a great response in the press. On October 25, 1941, the Central News Agency broadcast a press release of Yu Youren's speech, and many newspapers such as Chongqing's Central Daily, Xinhua Daily, and Lanzhou Northwest Daily prominently forwarded it on the front page.
With the momentum of public opinion and the support of the people, Yu Youren immediately submitted a formal proposal to the National Government after returning to Chongqing, "Proposing the establishment of the Dunhuang Art Institute with a view to preserving the culture of various ethnic groups in the East and promoting it..." The proposal was soon adopted, and the Ministry of Education was inconvenient to set up a college to set up the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute due to institutional and other reasons.
By 1944, the National Dunhuang Art Institute was officially established, and Dunhuang finally ushered in national protection.
Yu Youren and Zhang Daqian, the proposal of the two "bearded men" contributed to the establishment of the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute.
It is difficult to discern
In March 1943, Zhang Daqian, who was taking advantage of the winter to spring to nervously copy the murals, suddenly received an urgent telegram from Gu Zhenglun, chairman of the Gansu Provincial Government, who was transferred by the governor of Dunhuang County: "Zhang Jundaqian, stay in Dunhuang for a long time, the central parties, quite annoyed. Chen Chen, the governor of Dunhuang County, told Zhang Jundaqian: For the murals, do not deface them slightly, so as not to be misunderstood! ”
The tone of the cable was not good, "no misunderstanding" sounded more like a warning, and "for the murals, do not deface them a little" refers to the already boiling Zhang Daqian's destruction of the Dunhuang murals.
At the end of 1942, a few months ago, Fu Sinian, director of the Institute of History and Linguistics of the Academia Sinica, and Li Ji, director of the Archaeological Office, jointly wrote a letter to Yu Youren to make Zhang Daqian's destruction of dunhuang murals public. In fact, Fu Sinian and Li Ji received a "report" in 1941.
After Yu Youren's inspection of Dunhuang, the accompanying archaeologist Wei Juxian stayed alone in Dunhuang for a month, and then gave many speeches in Chengdu and other places, calling for the protection of Dunhuang, talking about Zhang Daqian's destruction of the murals. Feng Hanji, director of the Sichuan Provincial Museum, and Zheng Dekun, director of the West China University Museum, sent a letter to the Academia Sinica to reflect the matter. Because Feng and Zheng did not meet in person, Fu Sinian and Li Ji did not fully accept it.
In 1942, Xiang Da, a member of the Northwest Historical Expedition of the Academia Sinica, sent a more detailed and serious "report" from Dunhuang, and Fu Sinian and Li Ji could not believe it.
Xiang Da was a professor at Southwest United University at that time, a famous historian, Dunhuang scholar, and expert in Chinese and foreign transportation history. He arrived in Dunhuang in the spring of that year and inspected it for a year, during which he became acquainted with Zhang Daqian. According to Xiang Da's description, the murals of the Thousand Buddha Caves have single layers and several layers, which are superimposed on the layers of various dynasties, and the Northern Wei Dynasty is the innermost, and later people paint dirt on the upper floor and re-paint. Xiang Da personally saw Zhang Daqian and his son lead the painter to "break the three days of work, peel off the outer layer, quite return the old view, rejoice and admire", Zhang Daqian also happily inscribed on the wall: Shu Du Zhang Hair Daqian.
Subsequently, Xiang Da published a 10,000-word long article under the pseudonym "Fang Hui", accusing Zhang Daqian of acts of sabotage in the process of copying the murals, and his words were painful. This article is undoubtedly a bombshell, and the roots of many of the later accusations and criticisms of Zhang Daqian can be found in this article.
Eighty years later, whether Zhang Daqian destroyed the Dunhuang murals is still debated, and even intensified. The very different narratives of many witnesses, parties, and researchers have deduced this matter into a "Rashomon". Zhang Daqian's Dunhuang copy has a mixed reputation and is difficult to discern.
Among Zhang Daqian's claims of destroying the murals, "the most resentful person is to arbitrarily strip the murals in one fell swoop." However, exactly how many murals Zhang Daqian peeled off is not clearly recorded. In the examination of Xiang Da and later researchers, it is clearly pointed out that the fresco peeled off by Zhang Daqian is the Song Dynasty mural of Zhang Daqian's numbered Cave 20 and now Numbered Cave 130. Even this mural has three theories, one saying that it is Xiang Da, who was peeled off by Zhang Daqian.
One says that it is the recollection of Dou Jingchun, an attaché of Yu Youren's expedition to Dunhuang. Zhang Daqian explained to Yu Youren the cascading of Dunhuang murals, pointed to the cracks in the broken murals and revealed the painting marks, saying that there were paintings under the paintings. Yu Youren just said, "That's very precious," and the county government's entourage had already reached out and pulled open the peeling outer wall, which was torn apart due to excessive force.
Another theory is that after Zhang Daqian consulted with Yu Youren, he ordered the soldiers to knock out the outermost layer of the mural.
Zhang Daqian, who is under the public criticism, has always regarded himself as a "villain" who "moves his mouth and the villain moves", will only paint with his hands, refuse to speak, and never respond publicly to these accusations, which also makes this incident more confusing.
In fact, regarding the surface murals of Cave 130, Zhang Daqian wrote such a passage in the "Catalogue of the Exhibition of Dunhuang Paintings": "The Song Wall is broken, and the murals on both sides of the Yongdao are almost unrecognizable. Peeling off, see the inner layer of the faint painting, because of the broken wall, so the old view, although the painting has been damaged, and the color line pen, the elite has not lost, because it is known to be a famous hand of the Tang Dynasty. ”
There is no subject in the writing, but "because of the destruction of the wall, the old view is restored" is obviously speaking of itself.
From the perspective of cultural relics protection, this move is difficult to escape the responsibility of "destruction". But at the time, this was actually due to the different perceptions and judgments of artists and archaeologists on dunhuang murals. Xie Zhiliu, a famous painter who had been friends with Zhang Daqian for more than forty years and went to Dunhuang with him, once explained to Zhang Daqian: "In those days, Zhang Daqian did knock out two murals in Dunhuang..." "If you were in Dunhuang at that time, you would also agree to knock them out, since the outer layer has been peeled off, there is no recognition of the appearance, and there are still murals inside, why not remove the outer layer to expose the jinghua inside?" ”
The way Zhang Daqian copied the Dunhuang murals is also a point that he has been criticized for. The first draft of the copy is to draw the first draft of the line "on the mural with cellophane", and then stretch it to the canvas to depict and color. This completely and accurately "copies" the size and lines of the mural, but uses thin cellophane directly overlaid on the mural to outline, which is extremely dangerous for fragile murals. After the establishment of the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute, this method of copying was "absolutely prohibited". This is not just for Zhang Daqian, because this is "an unreasonable practice that has become a habit in the past", "in the beginning, everyone covered the mural with transparent paper".
At the same time as Zhang Daqian copied the murals in Dunhuang, the Northwest Art and Cultural Relics Delegation of the Ministry of Education came to dunhuang Mogao Grottoes for inspection and copying, and the four members of the delegation, Wang Ziyun, Lu Shanqun, Lei Zhen, and Zou Daolong, all received higher art education in China and the West.
Wang Ziyun witnessed Zhang Daqian's copying of the mural: "Zhang Daqian is not to preserve the existing appearance, but to 'restore' the original appearance... It's like seeing a newly built temple, and it seems to be a bit 'craftsmanship' and fire. In other words, Zhang Daqian's copying is not a faithful record of the current situation of the mural, but a "restoration map" with a strong personal imprint.
The Northwest Art and Cultural Relics Expedition in mogao grottoes has been intermittently maintained for one and a half years, in addition to copying murals, it also includes photography, surveying and mapping. In January 1943, the Northwest Art and Cultural Relics Expedition held the first Dunhuang art exhibition in Chongqing, and the scene was very popular. According to the Ta Kung Pao, "the audience was unusually crowded from morning to night, especially the spectators in the Six Dynasties painting exhibition room were amazed at the greatness of the ancient art style of the mainland."
Zhang Daqian, who was still in Dunhuang, received an urgent telegram from Gu Zhenglun, chairman of the Gansu Provincial Government, shortly after, "eviction order", and left the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in early May 1943.
A year later, Zhang Daqian also held an exhibition of Dunhuang murals in Chongqing. The controversy that continues to ferment in the academic circles has not affected people's pursuit of famous painters and Dunhuang art, and "Dunhuang" has become a social hotspot for a while. Although the ticket price of the exhibition is as high as 50 yuan, the ticket office often has a long queue, sometimes as long as more than a mile. Chen Yinke, a giant of Dunhuang studies and a master of traditional Chinese studies, said after seeing the painting exhibition in Chongqing: "Mr. Daqian copied the murals of the Northern Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty and introduced them to the world, so that he could glimpse one of the treasures of our country, and his achievements have gone beyond the scope of previous research, not to mention that his genius is unique, although it is the basis of imitation, it also has the merit of creation." ”
Zhang Daqian copied the rights and wrongs, merits and faults of the Dunhuang murals, and let the world comment, it is undeniable that it is the legendary painter's trip to Dunhuang that prompted Dunhuang to become an eminent scholar, so that Dunhuang art has been disseminated and recognized on a larger scale.
Duan Wenjie, the second president of the Dunhuang Research Institute, was still studying at the National Art College at the time, and he did not buy a ticket on the first day to see the art exhibition, and the next day he got up early to buy a ticket to see it. "Some people say that I was attracted to Dunhuang after watching the exhibition, and this is indeed the case." Duan Wenjie later recalled.
"Life Imprisonment"
The murals of Chang Shuhong and Li Chengxian copied the works.
On the eve of Zhang Daqian receiving the "eviction order" and preparing to leave Dunhuang, a small team of 6 people came to the Mogao Grottoes. This line of people is all the staff of the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute that is still in preparation. The leader is Chang Shuhong, the first director of the institute.
Born in Zhejiang in 1904, Chang Shuhong studied painting since childhood, and in 1927, he studied oil painting in France for ten years, and became a young painter on the banks of the Seine. It was during his time in France that Chang Shuhong accidentally saw a picture album of "Dunhuang Grottoes Catalogue" compiled by Bo Xihe on the old book stall, and he realized that the ancient artistic achievements of the motherland were brilliant. Chang Shuhong described himself as having become associated with Dunhuang from then on, "yearning for it", which was one of the reasons that contributed to his return to China in 1936.
When Japan invaded China and the country was in trouble, Chang Shuhong traveled to many places, and it was not until 5 years later that his life was truly firmly integrated with Dunhuang.
At the end of 1941, Yu Youren returned to Chongqing after inspecting the northwest and immediately submitted a formal proposal to the Nationalist Government: "It seems that the literature and art of this oriental nation, if it is not actively tried to preserve, the world's cultural relics of Dunhuang, fearing annihilation, is not specially sighed by archaeologists and naturalists, it is actually the greatest loss of the nation." Therefore, it is proposed to set up the Dunhuang Art Institute to recruit art students from the university to study on the spot, and to keep it in research, at a small cost and with great success. ”
As a Kuomintang elder and president of the Control Yuan of the National Government, Yu Youren's proposal was very weighty and was quickly adopted. Due to the educational mechanism at that time and other reasons, the Ministry of Education of the National Government did not establish a college and changed it to the Dunhuang Art Research Institute. Also because of Yu Youren's influence, his subordinate Gao Yihan, the inspector of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia, was appointed director of the preparatory committee of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute, and the deputy director who actually presided over the work had to find an expert. On the recommendation of many cultural celebrities, Chang Shuhong, then a member of the Cultural Committee of the Ministry of Education, took over this mission.
Chang Shuhong flew from Chongqing to Lanzhou alone and took up his post. The ministry of education allocated extremely limited funds, with only 50,000 yuan in reserve. In Lanzhou, Chang Shuhong recruited only five staff members for the Dunhuang Art Institute — not even the large number of people on the preparatory committee. The group of six people, with purchased supplies, took a large truck from Lanzhou to Anxi. After that, it was the vast Gobi, and they changed camels and walked for nearly a month. By the time they arrived in Dunhuang, the six well-mannered cultural people had turned into northwestern men dressed in old sheepskin jackets, felt hats, and frost-faced.
In the last two months of Zhang Daqian's stay in the Mogao Grottoes, he had many contacts with Chang Shuhong and provided a lot of help for the preliminary work of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute. Seeing that Chang Shuhong and others were short of funds and only filled with pickles and dried steamed buns every day, Zhang Daqian often invited them to his residence to eat. Chang Shuhong remembers that at Zhang Daqian's family banquet, he even ate bear paws, venison and other mountain treasures and seafood.
In May 1943, Zhang Daqian and his party left the Mogao Grottoes, and Chang Shuhong sent them far away. Before parting, Zhang Daqian said to Chang Shuhong half-jokingly and half-sympathetically: "We left first, but you have to study and keep it here endlessly, this is a life sentence!" He also pretended to mysteriously leave Chang Shuhong a "treasure map" to be opened after he left.
When Chang Shuhong opened it, it was a map of mushrooms drawn by hand, and he had accidentally found a mushroom growth place in the nearby woods. On the mushroom map, Zhang Daqian also carefully marked when it could be picked and the amount that could be picked each time. In the Mogao Caves, where vegetables are extremely scarce, this is indeed a "treasure map". Chang Shuhong was very touched, and later wrote a poem: People say that Dunhuang is bitter, and lonely lamps read grass mushrooms at night. There are many people in the west.
The early staff of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute led by Chang Shuhong actually faced the dilemma of funding cut-off from time to time under extremely difficult conditions. In addition to the preparatory funds given by the Ministry of Education, no further funds were allocated for a year in 1943. After several correspondence and telegrams, I got a ridiculous answer: there was no "National Dunhuang Art Research Institute", only "National Oriental Art Research Institute", because there was no address, there was no way to send money.
However, with the arrival of Chang Shuhong and his party, Dunhuang finally began to be consciously, organized and planned.
As soon as they arrived in Dunhuang, they posted a notice on the north side of the ninth floor of the Mogao Grottoes. The gist is that the Mogao Grottoes have been nationalized and are important cultural monuments of the country, and they must be protected and must not be destroyed. Since then, it has been announced that the Mogao Caves have a protective agency.
On January 1, 1944, the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute was officially established, with Chang Shuhong as its director. "This marks the end of the Dunhuang Grottoes' history of about 400 years of unmanaged, untouched, damaged, destroyed and stolen, and opened a new chapter in the history of protection, research and promotion." Fan Jinshi, the third president of the Dunhuang Research Institute and "daughter of Dunhuang", said.
Chang Shuhong took the first batch of "Mogao people" and was full of energy. In particular, in view of the chaotic state of the Mogao Grottoes for a long time without management, the Dunhuang Art Research Institute cleaned up the sand in the caves, planted anti-sand forest belts, installed some cave doors, and built protective walls. The appearance of the grotto has been initially improved. At the same time, the planned investigation, examination and copying of the caves has taken a historic step. In just one year, he copied and copied hundreds of murals, and sorted out, edited and published the "Dunhuang Stone Chamber Portrait Inscription".
However, the Nationalist government suddenly made a ridiculous decision against the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute: in July 1945, due to political instability and financial constraints, the Ministry of Education announced the dissolution of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute, which had just turned one year old, and transferred the Mogao Grottoes to the management of Gansu Province. In the face of this sudden and cruel news, Chang Shuhong was caught off guard.
Although Chang Shuhong was relieved that "our work was originally done entirely by our own strength, and the abolition or non-revocation of the research institute is of little practical significance", without state appropriations, the survival of these people is a problem. A few months later, after the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, there were too many better places to go in jubilant China, and the professionals and staff of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute went their separate ways and lost everything, leaving only two workers, one of whom was Dou Zhanbiao, a Dunhuang man hired by Zhang Daqian and left to Chang Shuhong.
Chang Shuhong almost became the "Commander of the Light Pole". At this time, he also received a letter of appointment from Beiping Art College, but he still chose Dunhuang. He left Dou Zhanbiao and the two to take care of the Mogao Grottoes, and he took his daughter Chang Shana and Dunhuang paintings to Chongqing. On the one hand, it raises funds and creates momentum for the exhibition, and on the other hand, it appeals with scholars such as Fu Sinian, Xu Beihong, Xiang Da, Chen Yinke, and Liang Sicheng.
Bitter people, the sky is not the limit. In 1946, the Dunhuang Art Research Institute was restored and assigned to the Academia Sinica. More than 20 young painters such as Duan Wenjie, Guo Shiqing, Li Chengxian, Ouyang Lin, Sun Rugong, and Shi Weixiang followed, and later achieved many outstanding Dunhuang scholars and famous painters. On August 28, 1948, they held a large-scale "Dunhuang Art Exhibition" in Nanjing, exhibiting 500 works, which caused a sensation. At this time, the Dunhuang Art Research Institute had completed the copying of more than 800 murals.
As everyone knows, the National Government, which was not concerned about the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute, was worried about these Dunhuang paintings when it was about to die.
Dunhuang returned
In the 1940s, Chang Shuhong copied it in the Mogao Caves
After the Dunhuang Art Exhibition, Chang Shuhong took the paintings on display to Shanghai and prepared to select the better works for color printing and publication. The book has not yet been printed, but the Ministry of Education of the National Government, which has repeated attitudes towards the Dunhuang Art Research Institute, has come to "pick peaches".
At the end of 1948, a director took the "hand message" of the minister of education and asked Chang Shuhong to transport all the Dunhuang facsimiles from the speed to Taiwan for display.
At that time, the Defeat of the Kuomintang Government on the Mainland was already decided, and it began to be busy "running away." The cultural relics of the Forbidden City that moved south were moved to Taiwan around this time. The Dunhuang murals were not artifacts, and they could not move them, so they planned to wrap away the most complete facsimile of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute.
Chang Shuhong prevaricated on the grounds that the album was being plated and promised to send it as soon as the plate was completed. Fortunately, the director had no intention of fighting, and after a few words, he hurriedly flew to Guangzhou.
But Chang Shuhong did not dare to be careless, and that night he packed up all the facsimiles and hid. Soon after, he finally got a ticket to Feilan Prefecture, and he ran back to Dunhuang without stopping. This left a facsimile of the Dunhuang murals.
In 1949, the People's Liberation Army's Northwest Field Army was swept up in the clouds, and the red flag was planted with important ancient cities that had experienced the storms of history. The Mogao Grottoes in the isolated desert did not experience the war of liberation, and the county seat of Dunhuang was peacefully liberated on September 28. The next day, the order of Peng Dehuai, commander of the Northwest Field Army, to "protect the Dunhuang Thousand Buddha Caves" reached the Mogao Caves.
On August 1, 1950, the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute was renamed the Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics, and Chang Shuhong succeeded him as its director. The Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics no longer prefixes the so-called "national" word, but it is a unit directly under the Ministry of Culture, and Dunhuang has also ushered in the real attention and protection of the national government.
The Ministry of Culture determined the policy and task of the Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics - protection and promotion, and allocated a jeep, purchased a generator, installed electric lights for the first time in the Millennium Mogao Grottoes, and made a big step forward in dunhuang's cultural relics undertaking.
The institute invited a number of experts and skilled workers in geological exploration, sand control, fine arts and ancient architecture from Beijing to thoroughly strengthen the 261 caves, more than 7,000 cubic meters of barrier walls and more than 300 meters of rock walls of The Thousand Buddha Caves. All caves are fitted with doors and windows, and the quicksand is basically controlled. A reference room with more than 20,000 photographs and tens of thousands of books was established, and the microscopic film of the Dunhuang Testament, tens of thousands of volumes of scriptures and documents from various eras, Tang Dynasty silk paintings and cultural relics were all well stored in the newly built library.
In the spring of 1951, the first large-scale cultural relics exhibition after the founding of New China was the Dunhuang Cultural Relics Exhibition. The exhibition, held on the upper floor of the Noon Gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing, included more than 1,000 copies of murals and various cultural relics, which lasted for 57 days. Premier Zhou Enlai also visited the three exhibition halls one by one with great interest. Zhou Enlai also mentioned to Chang Shuhong that in 1945, he had seen the Dunhuang facsimile exhibition in Chongqing, "now the scale is large." ”
In August 1981, accompanied by Chang Shuhong, former director of the Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics, and Duan Wenjie, then director, Deng Xiaoping and his party went to the Mogao Grottoes. After listening in detail to the work report of the Dunhuang Institute of Cultural Relics, Deng Xiaoping took the initiative to put forward: "Do you have any difficulties?" Duan Wenjie reported on the problems faced by the study and protection of the Mogao Caves, and Deng Xiaoping immediately instructed them to be solved. After carefully visiting the cave's murals and painted sculptures, he said with emotion: "The protection of Dunhuang is a thing, or a big thing!" ”
In that year, the state finance allocated 3 million yuan to solve the difficulties existing in the Mogao Grottoes. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Gansu Provincial Government also formed a joint working group to implement the work in Dunhuang, so the study of Dunhuang culture has been deepened, and the institute has developed into a research institute in 1984.
In 1987, the Mogao Caves were inscribed by UNESCO on China's first World Cultural Heritage List. Also in this year, the Dunhuang Grottoes Research International Symposium was held in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, and Dunhuang Studies, which had once "run away", finally returned to its hometown. Since then, with the hard work of Chinese scholars, the passive situation of "Dunhuang in China, Dunhuang Learning Abroad" has gradually changed. Now, China's being the center of Dunhuang studies has become the consensus of the international academic community.
Since the establishment of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute in 1944, generations of "Dunhuang people" have guarded the heritage with ingenuity, and this treasure house of oriental art has become more and more radiant.
In 1950, the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute completed the handover, which was later changed to the Dunhuang Cultural Relics Research Institute.