1959.12 敦煌千佛洞

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The Cave Temples
Scholar and author, BASIL GRAY has been in charge of oriental antiquities in the British Museum since 1938. His illustrations are from unpublished negatives belonging to the Tun-huang Institute and from the book about Mai Chi Shan which he mentions in his article.

By Basil Gray
DECEMBER 1959 ISSUE
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by BASIL GRAY

WHEN Langdon Warner visited the Tun-huang Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (Ch’ien Fo Tung) in 1924, he found the place all but deserted and a prey to any hazard of passing soldiers or curio hunters. He thought that he must salvage what he could. In 1942, an institute was founded by the Kuomintang Government to look after this wonderful series of painted shrines, and its work of conservation still continues. A good deal of clearing up and some rather drastic restoration were done under the directorship of Chang Ta-ch’ien, the well-known painter. At this time, also, access was made possible to a number of caves which had been previously inaccessible, by construction of new staircases and by cutting through the walls separating some of the upper caves.


The present director, Mr. Chang Su-hung, is fully aware of the problems created by the condition of the conglomerate cliff and of the caves hollowed out of it from fifteen hundred to six hundred years ago. The greatest threat is from the collapse of sections of the cliff; more certain and relentless is the erosion caused by loose sand falling down the face of the cliff from the top of the escarpment. An attempt has been made to plant scrub to hold the drifts, but not with much effect. Meanwhile, buttresses of brick have been built against the face of the cliff, and I saw excavations for foundations of stone buttresses on a larger scale.

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The wall paintings are also suffering from exposure to the sun; rain is a lesser risk, for none has fallen at Tun-huang for twenty years, I was told. Originally, the shrines were approached through corridors leading from galleries cantilevered into the face of the cliff. The interiors were therefore dimly lit. Now that, in many cases, the face has fallen away, the sun streams into the shrines and onto the paintings which cover the walls. The pigments used were partly earth colors — yellows and browns — and they fade unevenly.

Most distressing is the effect of sunlight on the red and white leads, which were used for flesh tints, especially in the early caves under the northern Wei (fifth to sixth century A.D.). Grotesque discoloration has distorted the expressions and the figures of these once gracious and smiling Buddhist beings. I was shown an area in Cave 263 where a Sung layer of paint had been removed to reveal in its primitive beauty of azure blue the Wei level, with outline like wire and highlights skillfully applied without the least trace of exaggeration. The stance of figures is the elegant sway of the Indochinese style, which was dominant in the sixth century. The gold-enhanced jewelry and floating drapery reveal a strong wave of influence from Sassanian Iran that was soon to be felt as far east as Japan.


But action of this kind is taken only when the later painted surface has fallen away, and I was told that the minimum of treatment was the rule until scientific study of the pigments and the wall surface had established the best method of conservation. This would prevent the hasty and ill-judged action which has been so fatal at Ajanta. Hand copying of the wall paintings was still continuing, and the director reminded me how successful the exhibition in Peking in 1951 had been, even in high official quarters. It was really this activity which has made Tun-huang one of the show places of the new China. Although lack of facilities for more than two or three guests to stay there at a time limits access at present, a hotel is planned. Soon color photography will have supplemented, if not superseded, hand copies. A photographer was working full time on the recording of the cave paintings and sculpture, using the best cameras, equipped with wide-angle lenses and color film; he is no longer dependent on flash bulbs, but is able to move his arc lights from cave to cave now that electricity is generated in the Institute’s compound. This is enclosed by a wall with a single gate, closed at night. Moreover, all the major caves have wooden doors kept padlocked for security.

There is work for many specialists to do at the caves. Not all the painted inscriptions have been copied and read; the close study of the clay figures has begun, and a volume was said to be almost ready for publication which will reproduce a good many. Even more than the wall paintings, these have been renewed and repainted down the centuries, and some of the most conspicuous renewals date from the past thirty or forty years. Cave 450 has become a sculpture museum. The succession of sculpture styles can be studied through many centuries at this place, continuously except for the almost complete gap caused by the Tibetan occupation from 750 to 848.


It was moving for me to see the empty chamber in which was found the famous cache of many hundreds of paintings and texts, now preserved in Paris, London, and Delhi, and to note how it had escaped detection for centuries because, after it had been bricked up, the whole wall had been covered with a painting in the style of the early Sung period. Mr. Chang has good reason to think that the chamber was not made at this time, but had been prepared as the tomb chamber of the local hero, Chang I-ch’ao, who had driven out the Tibetans in 848 and resumed relations with the Chinese Empire. But it now holds no secrets.

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Mr. Chang is an experienced painter, and he is much interested in the practice of his predecessors in the oasis. He believes that the relief lines found on some Sui and early T’ang paintings were made with a preparation of goat’s gall, applied to the wall by squirting it from the mouth of the goat’s intestine. The relief work was gilded, as gesso was in quattrocento Italy. Mr. Chang hopes to remove the blackening from cooking fires lit by the White Russians which so disfigures several caves, especially the fine early T’ang paintings in Cave 445, but this problem also awaits technical advice.

A series of Buddhist cave shrines, previously unknown to students, has been opened up at another site in western Kansu, hollowed out high on the cliff face at the great sugar-loaf crag of Mai Chi Shan and, with the decay of the wooden galleries and stairs, become quite inaccessible. The stone here is harder, and there are stone figures outside the caves but only clay figures within.

The Wei dynasty figures and wall paintings are not different from those at Tun-huang, but there is far more sculpture of the Sung period, and it is more metropolitan in style and quality. The figures are more naturalistic, and expression and movement more lively, than anything at Tunhuang. A useful publication, reproducing many of these figures and including some color plates of wall paintings, was published in Peking in 1954 under the title Mai Chi Shan Shih Ku, but much remains unstudied at this site also.


The well-known rock-cut shrines at Lung-mên, near Loyang in Honan, and at Yun-kang, near the steel city of Ta-tung, were subject in the twenties and thirties to vandalism, which ruined or decapitated many of the finest sculptures; they now are well protected within their enclosures. I found Lung-mên cleaned and tended, and rubbings from the smaller reliefs on sale. But there are more than thirteen hundred caves on the west side of the I River and four hundred on the east, containing, originally, ninety thousand figures. Some of the vanished carvings have been replaced by copies, as in the earliest cave, of 495 A.D., where the central Buddha is a poor imitation. It is clear that, under their present control by the Provincial Monuments Commissions, the standing Buddhist monuments of China are safer than they have been for a very long time.



山洞寺庙
学者兼作家BASIL GRAY自1938年以来一直负责大英博物馆的东方古物。他的插图来自属于敦煌研究院的未发表的底片和他在文章中提到的关于麦积山的书。

作者：巴西尔-格雷
1959年12月号
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作者：BASIL GRAY

当兰登-华纳于1924年访问敦煌千佛洞时，他发现这个地方几乎被遗弃，成为过往士兵或古玩猎人的牺牲品。他认为，他必须抢救他能抢救的东西。1942年，国民党政府成立了一个机构，负责照顾这一系列精彩的彩绘祠堂，其保护工作仍在继续。在著名画家张大千的领导下，进行了大量的清理工作和一些相当激烈的修复工作。在这一时期，通过建造新的楼梯和凿开一些上层洞窟的墙壁，以前无法进入的一些洞窟也得以进入了。


现任馆长张素红先生完全了解砾岩悬崖和一千五百至六百年前挖出的洞窟的状况所带来的问题。最大的威胁来自于悬崖部分的坍塌；更确定和无情的是松散的沙子从悬崖顶部落下造成的侵蚀。人们曾试图种植灌木以保持漂流物，但效果不大。同时，在悬崖上建起了砖砌的扶壁，我还看到了更大规模的石制扶壁基础的挖掘工作。

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壁画也因暴露在阳光下而受到影响；雨水的风险较小，因为我被告知，二十年来敦煌没有降雨。最初，这些神殿是通过走廊通往悬崖峭壁上的画廊的。因此内部的光线很暗。现在，在许多情况下，悬崖面已经消失，阳光流入祠堂，照在墙上的画上。所用的颜料部分是土色--黄色和棕色--它们褪色不均匀。

最令人痛心的是阳光对红色和白色铅字的影响，这些铅字被用于肉体的色调，特别是在北魏时期（公元五至六世纪）的早期石窟。怪异的褪色现象扭曲了这些曾经和蔼可亲、面带微笑的佛教徒的表情和形象。我在第263窟看到了一个区域，那里的宋代颜料层已被去除，露出了魏国水平的天蓝色的原始之美，轮廓像钢丝一样，高光部分被巧妙地运用，没有丝毫夸张。人物的姿态是印度支那风格的优雅摇摆，这种风格在六世纪占主导地位。镶金的珠宝和漂浮的帷幔显示出来自萨珊伊朗的强烈影响，这种影响很快就会在东边的日本出现。


但是，只有在后期的绘画表面脱落时才会采取这种行动，我被告知，在对颜料和墙面的科学研究确定最佳保护方法之前，最低限度的处理是规则。这可以防止在阿姜塔发生的那种草率和判断失误的行为。手抄壁画的工作仍在继续，馆长提醒我，1951年在北京举办的展览是多么成功，甚至在高级官员那里也是如此。事实上，正是这种活动使敦煌成为新中国的展示场所之一。虽然目前缺乏可供两三个客人同时入住的设施，但已计划建造一家酒店。很快，彩色摄影将补充，甚至取代手抄本。一位摄影师正在全职记录洞穴壁画和雕塑，使用最好的相机，配备广角镜头和彩色胶片；他不再依赖闪光灯，但现在研究所的大院里有了电，他可以把弧光灯从一个洞穴移到另一个洞穴。这是由一堵墙围起来的，有一扇门，在晚上关闭。此外，所有的主要洞穴都有木门，并挂上了安全锁。

许多专家在石窟里都有工作要做。并非所有的绘画铭文都已被复制和阅读；对泥塑的仔细研究已经开始，据说有一卷即将出版，其中将复制大量的泥塑。甚至比壁画更多的是，这些壁画在几个世纪以来一直在更新和重绘，其中一些最明显的更新是在过去三四十年间进行的。第450窟已经成为一个雕塑博物馆。在这个地方，除了750年至848年西藏人占领造成的几乎完全的空白外，可以连续研究许多世纪以来的雕塑风格的继承情况。


让我感动的是，在这个空荡荡的房间里发现了著名的藏书，其中有数百幅绘画和文字，现在保存在巴黎、伦敦和德里，并注意到它是如何在几个世纪里逃脱检测的，因为在它被砌上砖后，整面墙都被宋初风格的绘画覆盖。张先生有充分的理由认为，这个墓室不是在这个时候制作的，而是作为当地英雄张一麐的墓室准备的，张一麐在848年赶走了西藏人，恢复了与中华帝国的关系。但现在它没有任何秘密可言。

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张先生是一位经验丰富的画家，他对绿洲的前辈们的做法很感兴趣。他认为，在一些隋朝和唐朝早期的绘画上发现的浮雕线条是用羊胆汁的制剂制成的，通过从羊肠子的嘴里喷出来涂在墙上。浮雕作品是镀金的，就像意大利quattrocento的石膏一样。张先生希望能清除白俄人点燃的炊事火的发黑现象，这些发黑现象严重影响了几个洞窟，特别是第445号洞窟中精美的早期唐代绘画，但这个问题也在等待技术建议。

学生们以前不知道的一系列佛教洞窟神龛，已经在坎苏西部的另一个地方被打开了，它被挖在麦积山大糖块峭壁的高处，随着木质长廊和楼梯的腐烂，变得相当难以进入。这里的石头比较硬，洞外有石雕，洞内只有泥塑。

魏代的人物和壁画与敦煌的没有什么不同，但宋代的雕塑更多，而且在风格和质量上都更有特色。与敦煌的作品相比，这些人物更加自然，表情和动作更加生动。1954年在北京出版了一本有用的出版物，其中转载了许多这些人物，并包括一些壁画的彩图，书名为《麦积山石窟》，但这一遗址还有许多未被研究。


位于河南洛阳附近的龙眠和位于大同钢铁城附近的云冈的著名石刻神龛，在二十和三十年代遭到破坏，许多最好的雕塑被毁或被砍头；现在它们被很好地保护在其围墙内。我发现Lung-mên已被清理和维护，小型浮雕的拓片也在出售。但在伊河西侧有一千三百多个洞窟，东侧有四百个，原来有九万个人物。一些已经消失的雕刻被复制件所取代，如最早的洞穴，公元495年，中央的佛像是一个可怜的仿制品。很明显，在省级古迹委员会目前的控制下，中国的常设佛教古迹比过去很长一段时间都要安全。