[Explanation] At the Mogao Grottoes at the end of September, the weather turned cooler.
Recently, in Cave 432 of Mogao Grottoes, the restorer Yang Tao and his apprentices were repairing the bottom of the cave wall. He told reporters that the front room mural in this cave has three layers, which are the so-called "double-layer murals." The outer murals in some places have fallen off, exposing the two layers of bright colors below.
It is necessary to clean up, repair and strengthen the heavy-layer murals again.
It is necessary to repair the old as before, but also to have the "identifiable" of the repair traces.
[Concurrent] Yang Tao, Restorer of Dunhuang Murals
All are double-layer murals, like this mural are double-layer murals, two-layer murals, and then the Song Dynasty written on it should be Song Dynasty murals, all of which are all the early caves covered with a new layer, and then this is retained The early ones are on this Buddhist altar, including these shadow sculptures and these murals, all from the early Northern Wei Dynasty.
[Explanation] Yang Tao, who has been practicing medicine "face the wall" at Mogao Grottoes for more than 30 years, told reporters that in the profession of a restorer, it is easy to work, but it is difficult to be a craftsman.
Without ten years of hard work, it is difficult to settle down and repair.
The most common diseases of the Mogao Grottoes murals are nailing, hollowing and succinate.
Some diseases are very slow to repair, and skilled technicians can only repair them in one day.
It is very rare for a person to repair more than ten square meters a year.
[Concurrent] Yang Tao, Restorer of Dunhuang Murals
Originally, the mural was hollow. If you do not reinforce the mural, the mural will slowly fall off. In the 1970s and 1980s, the mural was reinforced. The advantage of reinforcement is that it is empty. The drum mural will be solved. It will not fall off anymore. The second disadvantage is that it should be rougher. Now we have reinforced it, all of which are painted on a rough surface, because the rough surface looks like a mural from a distance. , And if you look closely, its rough surface looks like this. It was artificially repaired. This is the identifiability of our mural restoration.
[Explanation] With the popularity of the professional restoration of cultural relics, friends around him are curious to ask him if he lives like a monk.
[Concurrent] Yang Tao, Restorer of Dunhuang Murals
It must be (boring). The newly arrived doll must be unable to sit still, and then you have to slowly repair the process. If you can't sit still, you must be the mural that you can't fix. It's a very boring day.
Then when you are still, the murals you meditate when you sit quietly are completely different from the murals you repair when you are impetuous and don't want to do it.
[Explanation] Every year, the Dunhuang Academy will determine the restoration task for the second year. The caves that need to be repaired will be "queued" and repaired first.
Nowadays, a scientific and technological team of more than 100 people in the Dunhuang Research Institute is "continuing their lives" for the Mogao Grottoes murals, and the amount of annual restoration is still large.
Gao Ying, Feng Zhijun, Yan Jiao reports from Dunhuang, Gansu
Editor in charge: [Liu Xian]