Good Morning,
I hope the winter holidays treated all of you well and may 2011 be a positive year for all. This week's topic is Dunhuang and the materials found hidden away in these caves. These sketches, as illustrated by Sarah Fraser in Formulas of Creativity: Artist's Sketches and Techniques of Copying at Dunhuang are dated to the eleventh century and are described as prep work for finished paintings demonstrating the process in which artists carefully planned out finished works. These blueprints, and other materials used to aid artists in their process, are most curious on account of their condition. Carefully sealed away in caves these drafts were not viewed as art themselves, as is often the case in places like Europe, but were put together with their finished counterparts by monastic administrators. Some theories of why the collection at Dunhuang exists include invasion by the Uighurs, the Xi Xia and Muslims; they used the caves in order to safeguard their sacred objects from these intruders. The five distinct kinds of drawings found at Dunhuang were reference sketches (used in wall painting for murals), sketches (used in religious application or ritual paintings), prep sketches for paintings on silk, practice sketches with repetition is some parts and detail in others, and there were also sketches made with the use of a pounce, a tool that help with the difficulties of painting ceilings.
How did these sketches influence our understanding of eleventh century China? The sketches and drafts found at Dunhuang allow us to better understand the culture surrounding that time period. The involvement of regional patronage as opposed to imperial gives clues to the structure of the regional government. The contents of these caves show the steps and stages of the great works within the caves acting as a blueprint of the final product. In these blueprints the true artist is seen, the ideas and themes of the story they were trying to portray comes out, these sketches provide a series of actions taken in order to produce their finished product.
Essentially these sketches are more than just blueprints of works of art, they are blueprints to Tantric artifacts used in prayer, in this way they unravel the mystery of the 'thousand Buddhas' but retain the marvel of Dunhuang much like the blueprints to an architectural wonder reinforces its achievement, beauty, and individuality.
I wonder if the process of the Bible were made public would it retain its intricate symbol or appear as the watered-down product of many sketches and drafts?
