Dunhuang murals, as the research data of historical costumes, mainly refer to the murals of Mogao Grottoes and Yulin Grottoes. Most of the murals in Yulin Grottoes are works from the Tang Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty in 800 years. There are huge paintings, single Buddha paintings, decorative patterns and a wide variety of exotic flowers, plants, birds and animals, as well as a certain number of realistic pictures of social life, production and technology at that time.

According to its characteristics, it can be divided into six periods: Middle Tang Dynasty (Tubo rule), Five Dynasties, Northern Song Dynasty, Uighur, Xixia and Yuan Dynasty. Dunhuang murals include Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, West Thousand Buddha Cave and Anxi Yulin Grottoes. There are 552 grottoes with over 50,000 square meters of frescoes. It is the cave group with the largest number of murals in China and even in the world, and its content is very rich.

Characteristics of Dunhuang murals

The artistic style of Dunhuang murals embodies the production techniques and style characteristics of China traditional art. As far as formal style is concerned, it is the product of the organic combination of line drawing modeling, decorative composition, meticulous painting and vivid description.

Line drawing is the main means of artistic modeling of Chinese painting and calligraphy, and Dunhuang murals also inherit this modelling technique, which makes the image highly general. The inheritance and development of lines can be seen from the weaving patterns, bird and beast patterns and geometric patterns in Yangshao painted pottery in Neolithic Age, Yunlong and dragon patterns in Shang and Zhou bronzes, and line drawing in Western Han silk paintings. Dunhuang frescoes inherit the way of line drawing and show their own characteristics.