A Study Of The Religious Implications Of Dunhuang Art Regeneration

Since the excavation of Mogao Grottoes in Qin Dynasty, Dunhuang Art has been there for more than 1600 years and world-famous for its religious, cultural and artistic values. In spite of the fact that great achievement has been made by scholars around the world in their study of Dunhuang culture, Dunhuang Art will be tested by the tide of cultural convergence and influenced by its limited space and time with the progress of world economic integration. As a result, Dunhuang Art has to exist as a new art form, i.e. Dunhuang art regeneration. The present study is to find out the religious implications of the regeneration.It takes almost 80 years from the moment Dunham art was refocused to the emerge of Dunhuang art regeneration. This paper consists of three parts. The first part explains the conceptions and terms relate to Dunhuang art regeneration, analyses the procedures and stages, and clarifies the study background and current situations; meanwhile, it tries to interpret the religious implication and it's aesthetic realization. This paper, finally, introduces the major sub-categories of Dunhuang art regeneration by the end of this part.The second chapter focuses on religious implication of the regeneration of Dunhuang musical dance and painting copies respectively. This paper chooses two of the regeneration forms out of many, and uses examples to illustrate the differences between the authentic Dunhuang art and the regeneration forms. The author selects two representative images, Guanyin Bodhisatta and the Fairy Fly Fresco, to explore the religious implication of Dunhuang art regeneration. Consequently, some philosophical ideas comes out. The religious implications embodied by Dunhuang art regeneration are not the religion in the proper sense, rather, they refer to consistent benevolence and freedom under modern context. The last part goes a further step to interpret the Dunhuang art regeneration in the contemporary context and under the background of weakening religious implication, and to explore the philosophical thinking of Dunhuang art regeneration. The enchantment of the authentic Dunhuang art lies in its inherent religious spirits, while the value of Dunhuang art regeneration does not go with its religious implication. This kind of religious implication realizes itself as benevolence and freedom through specific regeneration forms, thus makes the regeneration fulfilled with religious spirit of benevolence; and in turn, it popularizes and beautifies the Chinese dream of"flying", enables Dunhuang art to generate new religious implication and to seek for real anchor.