Art And Soul 3

A Magnificent Museum

Some museums are as boring as camelshit, but the one here at Dunhuang is the complete opposite, as it's basically an art museum packed to its hewn rafters with true mistresspieces.

I hope you don't mind me posting quite a few pics of some incredible works here. Art is a true love of mine, as you may have noticed. If it's too boring I give you permission to scroll down. But only this once.

Some of the art has been removed from the Mogao grottoes, to protect it, and some are fresco replicas.

It's truly beautiful.

Man-bird: "Oh darling please, just because I don't have a stork head doesn't mean we can't be together. I'm really crazy about you. Look at these. I flew halfway across the world to get you these beautiful designer tail feathers. You look so good in navy. And yeah, I know kissing has been problematic for us, but hey, don't you worry chickybabe, I'm stork where it really counts, down in those feather regions."

Haloed Boddhisatva: "Tut tut. Young creatures these days, so unaware and materialistic. What's the universe coming to? But I've gotta say, these freshwater oasis shrimp are the absolute bomb!"

Stork: "Wow! 2-part harmonies from the same man-bird. How romantic! Way more impressive than that other guy with the woosy kiss. Although .... hmmmm ....two heads .... mmmmm, maybe I'm not so sure. Double the cooking, plus if we ever argue it'll always be two against one."

Female haloed Boddhisattva: "Would you please shut your Gautam mouth Ananda! You're always preaching at me, and you're always so bloody happy! It's annoying! How about some silent meditation for awhile, I'm trying to listen to that amazing singing double-headed man bird over there. Oh my, oh dear, it's actually quite beautiful, oooh, yes, mmmmm. Who in heaven is he?"

Empress: "Oh hurry up general. Keep up, for Kwan Yin's sake!  And really, must you always look so serious?"

Mongolian gazelle trap. That's not a joke.

Hemp socks from the Han Dynasty, around the year dot, ie., the year 0.

Bronze sculpture from around the same period.

And a steamer.

Jade pillow from the 400s. Yep, a pillow. Reminds me of the wooden pillows they gave us at the monastery in Thailand last year.

A piece of music from the 500s. I played it on my guitar. It's really good, sounds a bit like a marching song for an army, or a procession or something. You should try it.

Stone carved stupa. Small stupas were chiselled out and placed inside the grottoes at Mogao, rather than outside. I've never seen this anywhere before.

Original pieces for the ancient go game, a very old and well known strategic board game in China.

Temple guardian from the 800s.

Inside the museum they've built an exact replica of one of the grottoes. Pretty amazing actually.

Han writings

And Tibetan

Ancient Darth Lord

4-armed Avalokitesvara from the 1600s.

Guru statue

Gig shirt for heavy metal singer

Ancient wood print for religious texts in Sanskrit

Beautiful porcelain figurines

Wooden lions

Pretty much all of the grottoes actually had donors, who would pay or support the artisans and monks to construct them. There was money around in those days. The donors were often wealthier traders looking for the protection of the Gods on their journeys, and sometimes devout monks would raise money from a variety of donors.

The information on the donors appears at the front of the grottoes, much like modern art gallery spaces display plaques saying they're sponsored by wealthy mining companies like Santos and BHP.

At least we can look at art while the world burns.

Old pics from the area, back in the day. Ruling class.

Monk and artisan class.

Told you there was money around in those days. This is local, western regions currency.

And the national currency.

On the way out I was astounded by a kids national art exhibition, most particularly by the ages of the painters. Surely their mums and dads (and art teachers) must've helped them.

This lot was from the age group 13-16:

Ages 10-12:

Doin the Jimi thing again.

Ages 7-9:

This is the only one that looked to me like it'd been painted by a child.

Beautiful Buddhist designs, some of which were printed on silk.

More apsaras

Modern embroidery using old folk designs

Felt work, with me embossed

More Deserts To Cross

Unfortunately, my visa's starting to get low, in the time department. I need to be out of China within a couple of weeks.

Bummer. I feel like I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of this vast, incredible and hugely diverse country. But already I need to think about leaving.

I have no other option but to take a bus and a train for the next leg, crossing from Gansu province into the even bigger province of Xinjiang, a region that encompasses a whopping one sixth of the country's entire land mass.

My next destination is Turpan, the hottest part of China, where it sometimes gets up to 50 degrees Celsius in summer. It's a region that sits in a massive geographical bowl, parts of which are over 150m below sea level. That makes it the third lowest region on earth, after Mar-a-Lago in Florida and the Pentagon/Kremlin/and a currently unnamed third political nerve centre, who all tie for second.

But I'm not going there for that reason. The region around Turpan is 80% Uyghur, and I'm going there to experience a new, rich and completely different culture and language.

I'm slowly moving away from Han China, and heading into Eurasia. The borders between the two major civilisations and cultures are blurred, and both groups have major strongholds in this region. But the more westwards I go, the more changes I see. And the more I realise that the two cultures, despite being geographically so close together, appear to be so many worlds apart❤️

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