English
Hirayama Ikuo Painting Work
The Silk Road

The 9th Floor The Mogao Caves, Dunhuang

  • Hirayama Ikuo
  • 2007
  • Color on Paper (Japanese Style Painting, Nihonga)
  • 80.3×116.7cm

Under the orange sunset, there stands a red pavilion. In about a thousand years, altogether 492 caves were built in Dunhuang, which gained prosperity because of the convergence of Eastern and Western culture. Founded in 695, the nine-story building, known as the Daxiong Palace (Cave 96), is a landmark building of the Mogao Caves. Inside the palace stands the Buddha of the early Tang Dynasty. At first, there were four-story wooden structures in front of the grottoes, but with the changes of the time and the renovation of the buildings, they were reconstructed to what it is now in the Republican period. After his first visit to Dunhuang in 1979, Hirayama Ikuo went there for several times, completed many works under the theme of Dunhuang, and spared no effort to participate in the protecting the Mogao Caves. This work is his depiction of Dunhuang completed in his later years.