Taking Dunhuang as an example, the value of cultural heritage:
Dunhuang grottoes art is a three-dimensional art integrating architecture, sculpture and painting. On the basis of inheriting the fine traditions of the Han nationality in the Central Plains and the brotherly nationalities in the Western Regions, ancient artists absorbed and integrated foreign expressions, and developed into Buddhist works of art with local characteristics in Dunhuang, China, which provided valuable materials for the study of ancient China's politics, economy, culture, religion, ethnic relations and friendly exchanges between China and foreign countries, and was a cultural treasure and spiritual wealth of mankind.
There are 492 paintings and colored sculptures in more than 500 caves in architectural art, including Zen caves, palace caves, pagoda caves, dome caves, "shadow caves" and some pagodas. The largest grottoes are more than 40 meters high and 30 meters wide, and the smallest grottoes are less than one foot high.
The Central Tower is a foreign grotto form preserved in the early days, which reflects that ancient artists assimilated foreign art while accepting it, making it a national form in China. Many of them are masterpieces of existing ancient buildings.
Colored Sculpture Art Colored Sculpture is the main body of Dunhuang art, including Buddha statue, Bodhisattva statue, disciple statue, heavenly king, King Kong, Lux, God and so on. Color plastic forms are rich and varied, including round plastic, floating plastic, shadow plastic and good plastic. The maximum height is 34.5 meters, and the minimum is only 2 cm (Shan Ye clay sculpture and wood carving), which is rich in themes and exquisite in craftsmanship, and can be called the Buddhist colored sculpture museum.
The portrait sculpture in Cave 17 in the Tang Dynasty is abhorrent to the unification of Hexi Capital, and the statue is painted with staff near the waiter, which integrates the statue with the mural. It is one of the earliest realistic portraits of eminent monks in China and has high historical and artistic value.
Mural art The largest and richest part of Dunhuang Grottoes art is mural, which not only reflects the religious theme, but also reflects some scenes of production and labor and social life at that time, providing valuable information for the study of ancient China society from the 4th century to14th century. The murals in Mogao Grottoes also have high artistic value, with the Tang Dynasty as the highest level. Scholars call Dunhuang murals "the library on the wall".
The grotto murals are rich and colorful, and all kinds of Buddhist stories, landscapes, pavilions and other architectural paintings, landscape paintings, flower patterns, flying Buddha statues and various scenes made by working people at that time are artistic representations of folk customs and historical changes from the Sixteen Kingdoms to the Qing Dynasty 1500 years.
In a large number of mural art, it can also be found that ancient artists absorbed the advantages of ancient art in Iran, India, Greece and other countries on the basis of nationalization, which is a symbol of the developed civilization of the Chinese nation.
Murals in different dynasties showed different painting styles, which reflected the political, economic and cultural conditions of China's feudal society. They were a glorious chapter in the ancient art history of China and provided precious graphic historical materials for studying the ancient history of China.
In the 26th year of Guangxu reign of Dunhuang Art (A.D. 1900), about 50,000 scriptures, documents, embroideries, portraits, etc. from Wei Jin to Northern Song Dynasty were found in the northern wall of Cave 16. Besides the documents written in Chinese, one-sixth of the documents are written in Park Jung Su, Baltic, Huigu, Tubo, Sanskrit and Tibetan. The contents of documents include religious documents, literary works, contracts, account books, official documents and letters.
The discovery of Dunhuang art is famous at home and abroad, and it is of great research value to supplement and sort out the ancient documents in China. Now Dunhuang studies have become a subject of concern to scholars at home and abroad, and Dunhuang suicide notes have been praised as the four major discoveries of modern ancient documents by academic circles.