Silk Road Secrets: The Buddhist Art of the Mogao Caves

BBC Arts & Culture
By Paul Hastie

The paintings from the Mogao caves show the development of Chinese art over a period of 1000 years

CHINA---In a secret cave on China's ancient Silk Road, one of the world's most incredible collections of art lay locked away in darkness for 900 years. It held a treasure trove of 50,000 Buddhist paintings and manuscripts dating back to the 5th Century. And it would have remained hidden from the world if it had not been accidentally uncovered by a curious priest - who sold it away for a fraction of its worth. The cave is one of the 500 surviving caverns at the Mogao Caves, on the edge of the Gobi desert, at Dunhuang in western China. Their wonders are on show in London next week as part of the V&A's new "Masterpieces of Chinese Painting" exhibition. [link]