Located just 25km from Dunhuang, Mogao Caves are one of China’s most spectacular repositories of Buddhist art. These cave shrines are stacked five stories high and are a truly remarkable site.

Tang Dynasty records say that a monk had a vision of thousands of Buddhas under showers of golden rays and, thus inspired, he started work on the caves, a project that spanned 10 dynasties! The surfaces of the caves was not always suitable for sculpting so the artisans creating the caves improvised. Clay statues were placed in front of cave walls and carved relief murals became backdrops. Much painting was done with influences of Indian Buddhist art clearly visible. The largest statue at Mogao is and incredible 34.5 meters high, whilst the smallest just 2 cm high.

As well as Buddhist art there is more recent work depicting scenes from everyday life at that time. The styles also change depending on the style of painting at the time of execution, changing with each dynasty with, for example Tang Dynasty work clearly different to that of the Song Dynasty.