Focusing on The Assembly of Tejaprabha, acquired by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1932, this article explores how monumental Buddhist murals were transformed from architectural and religious images into collectible works of art.
A conversation with artist Ouyang Zhenyu on the value of constraint and repetition, and the creative act as a tool toward broader self-understanding.
A masterpiece of Tang dynasty art has been understood primarily as relief sculpture. New research argues that its original form—and meaning—was something different.
What can digital reconstruction offer beyond visually recreating a lost historical state, especially when the cultural heritage in question has been dispersed or removed from the original context?
Long known as the Six Horses of Zhaoling, the mausoleum of Emperor Taizong (598–649), they were carved as relief on large stone panels, each roughly life-sized in presence and mounted originally on stone pedestals. Why are they there and what do they stand for?
Conversation between groundbreaking artist Lu Yang and Dr. Ellen Larson, CAEA Associate Director, at the Smart Museum of Art.
The Zhihua Temple is a Ming dynasty era Buddhist temple located in Beijing. The project resulted in digitally restored models of two of the main temple halls along with their original carved ceilings, which have resided in the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City and the Philadelphia Museum of Art since the early 20th Century.
The Longmen Grottoes is a UNESCO World Heritage site consisting of more than 2000 caves and 100,000 Buddhist statues, with most construction occurring between the 6th and 10th centuries C.E. Our project has digitally restored much of the Binyang Central Cave—one of the largest and oldest caves at the site, and originally including pieces now in collections at the Metropolitan Museum, the Tokyo National Museum and the Osaka City Museum.
The Six Horses of Zhaoling are six large stone relief sculptures created for the mountaintop mausoleum of the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Tang (598-649). The sculptures sustained significant damage over the years, and have been moved from their original location to museums in China and the US. This project aims to produce a complete digital reconstruction of the six stone horses and the upper three terraces of the emperor's mausoleum, known as Zhaoling.
Guangsheng Temple is a Buddhist monastery located in the southern foothills of the Huo Mountain range, dating as far back as A.D. 147. A major earthquake in 1303 devastated the region and was followed by extensive rebuilding during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), including the creation of a number of monumental murals and sculptures. In the late 1920s, a number of these murals were removed and sold to finance repairs, eventually becoming dispersed among collections in North America.