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At the Mogao Grottoes, a World Heritage site near Dunhuang city in Gansu Province, visitor numbers have increased inexorably since 1979 when the site opened. A national policy that identifies tourism as a pillar industry, along with pressure from local authorities and businesses to encourage more tourism, threatens to lead to an unsustainable situation for management, an unsafe and uncomfortable experience for visitors and irreparable damage to the fragile art of the cave temples for which the site is famous. In the context of the comprehensive visitor management plan developed for the Mogao Grottoes, a multi-year study began in 2001 as a joint undertaking of the Dunhuang Academy and the Getty Conservation Institute to determine the impact of visitation on the painted caves and develop strategies for sustainable visitation such that, once implemented, these threats would be resolved. The methodological framework featured a major research and assessment component that integrates visitor studies; laboratory investigations; environmental monitoring; field testing and condition assessment to address the issues affecting the grottoes and visitors. Results from this component led to defining limiting conditions, which were the basis for establishing a visitor capacity policy for the grottoes and developing long-term monitoring and management tools.
The Mogao grottoes in northwestern China, located near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. Preserved in some five hundred caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi Desert are one thousand years of exquisite wall paintings and sculpture. Founded by Buddhist monks in the late fourth century, Mogao grew into an artistic and spiritual center whose renown extended from the Chinese capital to the far western kingdoms of the Silk Road. Among its treasures are 45,000 square meters of murals, more than 2,000 statues, and over 40,000 medieval silk paintings and illustrated manuscripts. This sumptuous catalogue accompanies an exhibition of the same name, which will run from May 7 through September 4, 2016, at the Getty Center. Organized by the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Research Institute, Dunhuang Academy, and Dunhuang Foundation, the exhibition celebrates a decades-long collaboration between the GCI and the Dunhuang Academy to conserve this UNESCO World Heritage Site. It presents, for the first time in North America, a collection of objects from the so-called Library Cave, including illustrated sutras, prayer books, and other exquisite treasures, as well as three full-scale, handpainted replica caves. This volume includes essays by leading scholars, an illustrated portfolio on the replica caves, and comprehensive entries on all objects in the exhibition.
"Located at the crossroads of the northern and southern routes of the ancient Silk Road on the edge of the Taklamakan desert in western China, Dunhuang is one of the richest Buddhist sites in China with nearly 500 cave temples constructed between the fourth and the fourteenth century. The sculptures, murals, portable paintings, and manuscripts found in the caves represent every aspect of Buddhism, both doctrinally and artistically. From its earliest construction to the present, Dunhuang has been visualized in many ways by the architects, builders, and artists who made the caves to twentieth-century explorers and photographers, conservators, and contemporary artists. This book explores ways in which Dunhuang has been visualized from its creation to contemporary times. Essays by leading scholars from the U.S., Europe, and China cover a wide range of topics, from the architecture of cave temples to painting and sculptural programs, Buddhist ritual practices, expeditionary photography, conservation, and the contributions of Dunhuang to art history"--
Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it spans much of the period of our species' existence. Rock art also provides rare and often unique insights into the minds and visually creative capacities of our ancestors and how selected rock outcrops with distinctive images were used to construct symbolic landscapes and shape worldviews. Equally important, rock art is often central to the expression of and engagement with spiritual entities and forces, and in all these dimensions it signals the diversity of cultural practices, across place and through time. Over the past 150 years, archaeologists have studied ancient arts on rock surfaces, both out in the open and within caves and rock shelters, and social anthropologists have revealed how people today use art in their daily lives. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art showcases examples of such research from around the world and across a broad range of cultural contexts, giving a sense of the art's regional variability, its antiquity, and how it is meaningful to people in the recent past and today - including how we have ourselves tended to make sense of the art of others, replete with our own preconceptions. It reviews past, present, and emerging theoretical approaches to rock art investigation and presents new, cutting-edge methods of rock art analysis for the student and professional researcher alike.
The essays in this anthology examine artwork and sites in East and Southeast Asia through the lens of eco–art history. In these regions, significant anthropogenic changes to terrain, watercourses, and ecosystems date back millennia, as do artwork and artefacts that both conceptualize and modify the natural world. The rising interest in earth-conscious modes of analysis, or “eco–art history,” informs this anthology, which explores the mutual impact of artistic expressions and local environments in East and Southeast Asia. Moreover, conceptual tools and case studies focused on these regions impart important insights bearing on the development of eco–art history. The book includes case studies examining the impact of the Little Ice Age on court painting and systems of representing marine life in the Joseon period in Korea. Other contributors consider contemporary artistic strategies, such as developing a “sustainability aesthetics” and focusing attention to non-human agents, to respond to environmental damage and climate change in the present. Additional essays analyse the complicated art historical ecology of heritage sites and question the underlying anthropocentrism in art historical priorities and practices. As a whole, this anthology argues for the importance of ecological considerations in art history.
Staging Tianxia explores the ancient Chinese vision of world order known as tianxia (all under heaven) by focusing on the historical, performative, and rhetorical processes of expressive arts and cultural heritages that inform a vision of China as a historically multiethnic and cosmopolitan nation. Author Lanlan Kuang unites multimedia ethnographic research and theoretical insights from ethnomusicology, philosophy, religious studies, performance studies, and cognitive science, with a focus on Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a modern interpretation inserted into the Chinese classical dance and theatrical arts tradition. Staging Tianxia thus aims to redefine Silk Road studies and Dunhuangology, a transdisciplinary field dedicated to studying the texts and art of Dunhuang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that connected China via the Silk Road with Central Asia, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Staging Tianxia is a careful ethnographic study that looks at the importance of performance tradition and poetics in the arts and aesthetic theory of China.
The first comprehensive overview of architectural conservation in Asia Internationally renowned author John Stubbs follows up on the success of his previous volumes Time Honored: A Global View of Architectural Conservation and Architectural Conservation in Europe and the Americas Architectural conservation is a rapidly expanding and under-researched field in Asia and is international experts are often brought in, making the subject of considerable interest to international academics Boxes and case studies by local experts add depth and interest to the authors' meticulous research A website with extra information and resources accompanies the series: http://conservebuiltworld.com
At sixty-two meters the Leshan Buddha in southwest China is the world’s tallest premodern statue. Carved out of a riverside cliff in the eighth century, it has evolved from a religious center to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and popular tourist destination. But this Buddha does not stand alone: Sichuan is home to many cave temples with such monumental sculptures, part of a centuries-long tradition of art-making intricately tied to how local inhabitants made use of their natural resources with purpose and creativity. These examples of art embedded in nature have altered landscapes and have influenced the behaviors, values, and worldviews of users through multiple cycles of revival, restoration, and recreation. As hybrid spaces that are at once natural and artificial, they embody the interaction of art and the environment over a long period of time. This far-ranging study of cave temples in Sichuan shows that they are part of the world’s sustainable future, as their continued presence is a reminder of the urgency to preserve culture as part of today’s response to climate change. Temples in the Cliffside brings art history into close dialogue with current discourse on environmental issues and contributes to a new understanding of the ecological impact of artistic monuments.
Management Planning for Cultural Heritage challenges traditional perceptions of and about the heritage planning process while also presenting a comprehensive analysis of the ever-widening field of Cultural Heritage Conservation. Drawing on the authors’ experience in teaching and involvement in international practice, the book examines the changes that are taking place in modes of thinking about heritage as part of increasingly complex urban transformations, and considers how these must engage with, and inform, professional practice. The book also acknowledges that international best practice has developed a great deal over the last 40 years and needs to be adapted, applied and refined through the recognition and application of regional values – tangible and intangible – based on cultural attitudes and practices. Emphasising the critical role of heritage planning and management in guiding change, Taylor and Verdini argue that this is especially critical if we are to safeguard values, identity and significance. In this sense, heritage is understood not only as a technical process but also as a social construct. The book therefore promotes a people-centred approach to cultural heritage management. Management Planning for Cultural Heritage will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in heritage studies and conservation. While the text has professional application, it also sets out to present a sound theoretical foundation relevant to the body of knowledge associated with management of cultural heritage places.
Neville Agnew, senior principal project specialist at the GCI, is the author of numerous publications in research chemistry and conservation, including (with two coauthors) the book Cave Temples of Mogao: Art and History on the Silk Road. --Book Jacket.