All language subtitles for Art.Of.China.S01E01.WEBRip.x264-ION10

Narrator: A country the size of
a continent.

Population 1.3 billion
and counting.

How to understand such a place

and the energies that have
shaped it?

There's no better way than
to explore the art of China.

For 4,000 years
it's expressed the spirit

of the Chinese people,

their struggles
and their hopes...

..red mists of revolution

and long years
of brutal tyranny...

..splendours and marvels
of the imperial court...

..the spiritual serenity
of the Chinese landscape,

ancient refuge
of poets and painters.

And the art of ancient China

has revealed the country's
very origins,

thanks to a century

of astonishing
archaeological discoveries,

which have revealed some of
the most compelling images

ever shaped by human hands.

The story begins here,
in a remote corner

of Sichuan province,
where, in 1986,

a group of workers, digging
in this very network of fields,

made a truly startling
discovery.

These are the rural suburbs
of Guanghan city,

deep in the plains
of the vast Sichuan Basin.

Encircled by mountains,

throughout history
this land was barely accessible.

The region was known to have
been the home of a primitive

and mysterious people
called the Shu,

or the 'people of the eye',

as they were tantalisingly
described in early chronicles.

But why they were called that,
no-one knew.

Until a discovery was made

by workers in the grounds
of a brick factory.

They stumbled upon two pits
containing the broken pieces

of hundreds of bronze,
jade and gold artefacts.

What they'd discovered

were the treasures of a lost
and ancient city

called Sanxingdui.

It took the archaeologists
all of eight years

to piece together the fragments
of their remarkable find.

When they had finished,
what they revealed was this.

A whole series of images
from ancient China,

over 3,000 years,

the like of which
had never been seen before.

Grotesque masks, enormous,

made of cast bronze
with protruding eyes

and enigmatic smiles
on their faces.

And that was just the beginning.

Nearly 2,000 objects
were recovered,

revealing the Shu's
surprising mastery

of bronze-working technology

and their strong sense
of the uncanny.

Huge faces with bulging eyes
were found alongside

more than 50 smaller,
staring heads.

Looking at the bases of them,

they're hollow and they've got
this clamp-like attachments,

so it seems they were meant
to be attached to poles,

perhaps placed within
the precincts of a temple.

Imagine a forest
of these staring heads

erected all around you.

Even just standing here
in this gallery,

the overwhelming impression
is of being stared at.

Eyes have always been
a source of power in images.

When the Prophet Muhammad,
in the Islam world,

wanted to destroy images,

he ordered those doing
the destroying

to attack the eyes first.

The same was true in England

during
the Protestant Reformation -

they scratched the eyes out.

Here, the eyes have been given
immense significance.

This was
the 'people of the eye'.

But it's very frustrating.

You're being stared at
by these enigmatic faces.

What do your eyes mean?
Tell me, tell me, tell me!

No.

They're not saying a word.

These treasures were found
without texts or inscriptions.

We know they lay buried
for three millennia,

but can only guess
at their meaning.

Might they be evidence of

the Shu's
spiritual belief system?

A great tree of bronze
with fruit-bearing branches

on which
nine beady-eyed birds perch.

A tree of life linking sky
and earth -

finely wrought prayer
to gods of heaven and harvest,

whose names we'll never know.

They save the most...

..extraordinary discovery of all
till last.

I can't quite believe -
I'm very pleased -

they're actually letting me
in...

to the case
with this remarkable object.

It was always thought that there
was no tradition whatsoever

in ancient Chinese art -
for some 1,500 years -

no tradition of large-scale,

figurative,
freestanding sculpture,

and yet here he is
towering above me.

The only known
freestanding bronze sculpture

in all of early Chinese art,

discovered
less than 30 years ago.

What a figure it is.

He's got bare feet...

..perhaps to suggest that
he's in touch with the ground,

the earth,

and he's got this headdress
in the shape of flames

with the eyes of power
embedded within it.

So he is a figure who connects
the ground to the heavens.

His hands are in the shape
of these great circles,

which implies the holding
of some kind of vessel.

Perhaps a hollowed-out
elephant tusk.

Elephant tusks were also found
in the burial pit.

Not a single object found
in Sanxingdui

is for common or everyday use.

Everything is ritual.

It seems to be
the entire paraphernalia

of an ancient temple.

You've got those huge masks,

which were probably attached
to great posts of wood.

You've got the smaller heads
attached to poles.

Imagine a temple,

a people whose worship
had something to do with

the tree of life,

a tree that reaches up to a god

that may be associated with
the sun,

that nourishes birds,
that nourishes the soil...

..with this figure in the middle
presiding over the ritual.

Sanxingdui is China's Atlantis,
but real rather than mythical.

A civilisation
buried underground

rather than lost at sea.

But why would they have
broken up their principal images

and objects of worship

and buried them
in two deep pits?

Were they sacrificing
these images of their gods

TO their gods

to save themselves from plague,

invasion
or some other catastrophe?

Whatever the disaster was,
it must have done for them.

Because if they had survived,

they would surely have retrieved
their treasures.

And they never did.

Chinese history is often told

as a succession
of great dynasties,

but the find at Sanxingdui
proves this is a myth.

Early China was
a patchwork of competing tribes.

The Shu may have fallen simply
because they were too peaceful.

No weapons have been found
with their remains.

But their lack of
a written language

was an equally severe
disadvantage.

At the very same time,

another tribe was setting out
to conquer and unify this land.

They had swords and spears.

But their most important weapon,
it seems, was the word.

The earliest origins
of written Chinese,

like much of
its ancient civilisation,

can be found along
the banks of the Yellow River.

100 years ago,
here in Henan province,

local pharmacists
were dispensing

ground-up ancient animal remains
called 'dragon bones'.

The relics were covered
with archaic inscriptions,

arousing the interest
of archaeologists.

Further investigation revealed
documentary evidence

of China's first great dynasty.

What, you may ask yourself,
are these curious objects?

Well, they are, in fact,

among the most significant
artefacts

in the entire history
of Chinese civilisation.

They are the oracle bones
of the Shang.

Each one is
the carapace of a turtle.

And how it worked was this.

The king would ask himself,

"Is there trouble coming
in the next ten days?"

And he would ask his diviner

to help him find out
if there was.

And the diviner
would take a turtle shell,

apply heat to it
until it cracked

and then read
in the pattern of cracks

the answer
to the king's question.

King's question,
priest's prediction

and actual outcome

were all then inscribed
on the shell.

So, as well as being a record
of Shang superstitions,

these are also
the bare bones of Shang history,

recounting conflicts,
crop failures

and affairs of the court alike.

But why are they so significant?

Because they amount to
the first surviving example

of an invention
that would change the world -

the Chinese written language.

So, the famous oracle bones.

- These are 1200 BC?
- Yes.

Some of the very earliest
surviving Chinese writing.

This part mentions a famous lady
of the Shang dynasty,

- Lady Fu Hao.
- Ah, yes. Know her well.

Well, know her reasonably well.

- The king goes to see Fu Hao.

The Shang oracle bones
refer more than 100 times

to Lady Fu Hao,

a name worth remembering -

a warrior princess
who led troops into battle,

took captives
and expanded Shang territory.

What's this?
Is there an eye there?

- Yes. It means 'see'.

People kneel down
with a big eye on her head.

So to go and see

is someone kneeling down
with a great big eye?

- Yes.
- Very visual.

- Very visual, yeah.

- It's a form of
sort of painting language,

which becomes Chinese.

This is the beginning, yes?

It's not the beginning,
but the...

Not the beginning but...

..the childhood
of Chinese writing.

The childhood, OK.
Not the birth.

Not the birth.

Look at this character.

I got this character
from the oracle bone.

This is an example of
what you call associative.

- Yes.
- Which means, what?

That you have two images
together in one pictogram.

Yes. Actually,
there are three images here.

The left side is a little boy.

He's counting. It means 'five'.

He's thinking five by five.

Oh, he's doing his times tables?

- I'm sure.
- Ah! I've got it.

What's going on over here?

- This means 'father'.

There's a hand
holding something.

- It looks like a stick.

Yes, his father holding a stick.

The father is waiting
with a stick!

Standing by the side.

What's the meaning of
the whole...?

It means 'teaching'.

Teaching!

That seems to me to be somehow
very, very, very Chinese.

- Yes.
- And it all starts here.

[speaks local language]

Of the three great
pictographic languages,

including cuneiform from Syria

and hieroglyphics
from ancient Egypt,

Chinese alone has survived.

- Hello.
- Hello.

- Hello.
- Hello,

And in the process,

it has become the foundation
of continuity

in Chinese civilisation.

The most basic form
of Chinese art

is Chinese written language.

So, here's Mr Tang's
'teaching' or 'education'.

Slightly altered
from the oracle bones

over the millennia,

but it's still essentially
recognisable.

The little boy doing
his five times table

while his father stands over him
rather forbiddingly

with a stick.

The Chinese form of language,

because it's picture-making,

contains within it values,

beliefs, attitudes, systems -

this isn't just teaching,

this is teaching
"get it right or else!"

Through a series of images,
in effect,

it freezes moments -
ancient moments in history.

So, if you look at the symbol
for 'wife'.

'Wife' is woman, large hips,
cross-legged

and she's got a stick
through her hair

because in ancient times,

in Asia, when a woman
became married,

she lost the right
to wear her hair free

and she had to put a stick
through it.

So, 'wife'. Again, it's a...

So to speak, it freezes a moment
in ancient history.

The Chinese written language
stayed fixed

precisely because it was
a set of pictures,

and therefore immune
to changes in pronunciation.

What do you think?

It's not good, is it?

No.

No!

The written language
has always been

the bedrock
of Chinese civilisation.

[all chant]

Its creation was the key

to controlling
a vast population.

And thanks to
its earliest incarnation -

the characters
on the oracle bones -

we know that the Shang dynasty
used language to govern,

to educate and to write the laws

by which they imposed
their fierce rule.

[all chant]

Thanks to their written laws,

the Shang were able
to take control of and organise

huge swathes of territory
around the Yellow River Valley.

Not quite China,

but the beginnings of the nation
it would become.

The ground below
the city of Anyang,

where 3,000 years ago
the Shang capital stood,

produces so many
historical artefacts,

the archaeologists
can't keep up,

stockpiling whole chunks
of relic-rich soil

outside their labs.

When they extract these cubes
of compacted burial mound earth,

they know that they contain
something,

but they don't know what.

So, it could be a chariot,

it could be
a bronze drinking vessel.

It's sort of like
an archaeologist's lucky dip.

Excavations here
unearthed the palace

of a powerful Shang king,
Wu Ding,

who ruled over the Shang kingdom
in 1250 BC.

Nearby, the archaeologists found
the tomb of his consort,

a very warrior princess

whose name I'd seen
on the oracle bones -

Lady Fu Hao.

Now...

Ah.

I'm amazed
they've allowed me in,

but they have.

Here we are.

So, who was Lady Fu Hao?

Well, we know
she was a princess.

She was one of the favourite
consorts of King Wu Ding,

who obviously
thought a lot of her

because he had her buried
not in the royal burial complex,

but here,
in his own palace complex,

which suggests that he wanted
to remain close to her

after she died.

She was a general
as well as a princess -

the first recorded
female general

in Chinese history.

This tomb gives us
a remarkable insight

into the beliefs of the Shang
concerning the afterlife.

It would appear
that they believed,

rather as the Egyptians did,

that we continue to live
in the tomb after we've gone.

King Wu Ding had her buried

with a huge array
of bronze objects,

mostly to do with food and wine.

We see two of these 'ding',
which are containers for food.

We see cooking utensils
on a stove.

And everywhere else,
containers for wine.

She also -
this is rather a grisly detail -

she was also supplied
with human attendants.

They have uncovered
16 human skeletons.

They were executed
and buried along with her

so that they could attend her
in the afterlife.

The only person missing
is Lady Fu Hao herself,

but that's because
this area of the tomb,

where her coffin was,
was below the water table,

so it's all rotted away,
leaving just the red paint

that probably decorated
a lacquer coffin.

If you're wondering why
the authorities

allowed me in here,

well, that's because this place
is partly authentic -

yes, this really is
the site of her tomb -

but it's also partly theme park,

in the sense that
all of these objects

are actually replicas.

They don't tell you that,
by the way,

when you walk into the museum!

But you need to know it
for yourself.

And if you want to actually
experience

some of the richness
and some of the sophistication

of Shang material culture,

you need to go up the road
to the local museum.

[speaks local language]

[attendants exclaim]

OK.

Xiexie. Thank you.

So here it is.

Shang dynasty bronze.

3,500 years ago
this object was made.

It's a very heavy thing

and yet it's a vessel
for drinking wine.

What you can see very clearly
is one of the principal motifs

of these grave goods,
the taotie,

which is a kind of abstracted,
grotesque,

demonic, grinning, staring face,

formed from the shapes
of two dragons,

perhaps designed to ward off
evil spirits

from Lady Fu Hao's afterlife.

And on the handle, you've got
the most hostile face of all.

To me, because it's a handle,
it suggests a snake,

so it might almost be a cobra
coiled to strike,

and yet it's got the ears
perhaps of a wolf, a dog?

This is an object that speaks

of their ability
to master technology.

They also had the first chariots
in China.

It was a kind of revolution
in warfare that enabled them

to spread their culture
across the north.

Absolutely fantastic.

Faith in the ancestors'
life after death

was the dominant belief system
in ancient China.

It was used by the Shang
and later dynasties

to affirm a rigid
social hierarchy.

While finely crafted grave goods
for nobles like Fu Hao

would allow them to live nobly
after death,

the vast majority of Chinese
living on the land

were kept firmly in their place
in THEIR afterlives.

They were taught only to expect
more ploughing and cropping.

As late as the Han period,
around the birth of Christ,

they too were being buried
with art,

but not crafted bronzeware -

crude earthenware tablets
showing scenes of harvest.

Low art for low expectation.

And the afterlife now?
Well, it just won't die.

To this day the Chinese
still make offerings

to their ancestors.

Plates of fly-blown food
are involved.

But if you want something
more elaborate,

there is a modern solution
woven from bamboo and paper.

This is Mr Yang's
emporium of the dead.

It's where you come to buy
everything you need

if you want to make a sacrifice
in the modern day

for your ancestors.

How do you do? Hello.
Very good to see you.

What an extraordinary setup.

You've got everything you need!
You've got a computer over here.

In case you need to check
your e-mails in the afterlife!

You can log in.

'Dead'. Password...

..'totally dead'.

That'll do it.

Oh, it doesn't seem
to be working.

The internet is a bit dodgy
in this part of China.

There's a car!

There's a car.

Mr Yang. Mr Yang.
It's a Mercedes? Mercedes?

- [mumbles affirmatively]
- Why isn't it a Chinese car?

[speaks own language]

People love Mercedes
even when they're dead?

- [speaks own language]
- Good quality.

Hi. Hello. Good to meet you.

Show me...
What is this thing here?

- [speaks own language]

These are the attendants.

Ah, so, like Lady Fu Hao,

she had human sacrifice
skeletons

to look after her
in the land of the dead,

but they actually have...

What do we have?
What's back here?

Oh, wow!

- [laughs]

Fantastic!

- [speaks own language]

Is this for a dead farmer?

So that you can
do a bit of milking

in the afterlife,
make yourself feel at...

Oh. What's that?
It's got an udder!

It's got a kind of bamboo udder.
Let's not go there.

Let's not go there.

That's animal abuse.

[chuckles]

It's a dog!

Do you know how they sacrifice
all this stuff TO the ancestor?

What they do is
they pile it all up -

sorry, Fido -

and they set fire to it.

[barks, laughs]

The Zhou dynasty,
which followed the Shang,

lasted from 1000
to around 250 BC.

It wasn't a golden age for art -
very much a bronze age.

But it was
intellectually vibrant.

Writing was no longer
the preserve of priests

with their oracle bones,

but done on split bamboo staves
by secular authors,

poets, philosophers.

Most famous was Confucius,

still venerated today
in temples such as this.

He developed a benevolent
philosophy of statecraft,

as opposed to the violent rule
so commonplace before.

He believed a ruler was to be
like a father to his subjects.

The Confucians stood for
family values,

personal morality.

This was the period that also
saw the birth of Lao Tzu

and his writings,

which later came to be
crystallised as Taoism.

He preached the exact opposite -
a retreat to nature.

He preferred silence over words,
inaction to action.

It's been remembered
in Chinese history

as the time when 100 schools
of thought contended,

but 100 armies also contended

and it was a period
of increasing fragmentation

and division,
at the end of which,

China was split
into several warring states.

Then one man came along
who decided to change all that.

He set out to replace confusion
with order,

to replace debate
with his absolute rule.

He changed China and he changed
Chinese art for ever.

In 221 BC, the first emperor,
Qin Shi Huang,

quelled all opposing armies
and kings

and, for the first time,

created a single,
unified country.

This was the moment
China was born.

He standardised everything.

Weights, measures, currency,

road dimensions, language.

Like Hitler, Stalin and Mao -

who modelled himself
on the First Emperor -

he understood
that ruthless organisation

was by far the best way
to run a tyranny.

And he was a true tyrant -

brutal, cruel,
sadistic and paranoid.

To truly know the First Emperor,

you only have to look at
his burial site -

22 square miles.

Home to the most perfectly
totalitarian artistic vision

the world has ever seen -

an army of terracotta warriors.

Over there is Pit 2, which they
haven't yet fully excavated.

Behind that is Pit 3 where
you've got the headquarters -

a small group
of leaders of the army.

And in here...

Pit 1.

The thousands and thousands
and thousands of soldiers

who stand guard
over the emperor's tomb.

Remember Lady Fu Hao's
little tomb?

With her objects
for the afterlife.

Now, just look at this.

And remember,
this is just a tiny part

of 56 square kilometres

of the first emperor's tomb.

Look! It's like King's Cross!

It's like King's Cross
and there they are!

There they are,
the emperor's imperial guard.

The Terracotta Army lined up...

..for all time, like commuters
waiting to travel into eternity.

8,000 men of clay face east,

where he believed the souls
of his enemies lay in wait.

He'd subdued the eastern lands
during his lifetime,

massacred populations

and intended to do it all again
from beyond the grave.

He didn't just want
to LIVE the afterlife...

..but to conquer it.

There were ancient legends
detailing this dark creation -

an underground city
and an immortal army -

but it was only in 1974 that
the soldiers were uncovered.

Few are allowed to walk
within the restoration area

and amongst the ranks of troops.

But, up close and personal,
it becomes apparent

that each soldier
is an individual.

The faces
of the emperor's soldiers

express the breadth
of his realm.

Take these two.

This chap is, almost certainly,
a local, a Qin -

he's got the right face,
the right eyes,

the right hairstyle, but...

..this bloke...

well, high Asiatic cheekbones,

he's got the beard

of what the Chinese
at that point

were still calling
a 'barbarian',

and yet he's in
the emperor's army.

He's almost certainly
from Central Asia.

No-one's doing their own thing
any more.

Everyone's marching
to the First Emperor's tune.

The creation of the Terracotta
Army required its own army -

700,000 strong.

It took them 38 years
to finish the job.

This wasn't
an artist's workshop -

it was a production line.

I like this part
because they've, um...

they've laid the sculpture out
so that you can actually see

some of the evidence
of its bureaucratic making.

Here, you've got the name
of the craftsman responsible,

a poor slave labourer.

He was called Duo.

And here, here and here

you've got the seal of
the supervisor of the department

that was bureaucratically
responsible for the creation

of the Terracotta Army, so...

Duo did it and - boom, boom -
that's good to go.

Good to go to the tomb.
Now, look over here.

Looking down into the legs
of a terracotta soldier.

You're not just looking down
into that,

you're looking down
into the traces

of how these objects were made.

Very simply, using, essentially,
child's modelling clay

that's then baked.

And you can still see,
if you look inside,

you can still see...

..the imprint of the craftsman's
hand, his fingers,

the way that they've dragged
the clay into the shape required

to model the torso and the legs.

The Terracotta Army may yet
prove to be just the beginning

of the discoveries here.

Such is the scale of the site,

the archaeologists say that
it may be more than a century

before they finish
their excavation.

The pits and soldiers
lie a full mile to the east

of the emperor's
final resting place.

According to a Chinese historian

who was writing
less than a century

after the First Emperor's death,

the emperor had himself buried
within that great mound

in a stone sarcophagus
placed inside a bronze surround

within an entire underground
palace, "Filled,"

the historian writes
tantalisingly, "with treasure".

The palace was surrounded
by a moat of poisonous mercury

and if that weren't enough
to deter would-be tomb robbers,

there were
ingeniously-rigged archers

armed with deadly crossbows.

Now that once might
have all seemed

like historical fancy, legend,

but now that they've discovered
the terracotta soldiers

anything seems possible.

What secrets lie buried
beneath that great hill?

Of all the objects uncovered
during the excavations so far,

these two bronze chariots
have to be the most remarkable.

Found close to the emperor's
burial mound, they were designed

to transport his spirit through
his realm in the afterlife.

Now, the terracotta soldiers
are relatively crudely made.

This object is very different.

It's made out of bronze,

the craftsmanship
is utterly remarkable.

It's a fully-functioning
chariot.

If you detached it from
its horses and its stand,

it would roll along the ground -
it works.

Look at the umbrella
under which he rides.

It's got a mechanism,
still-functioning mechanism,

that enables its angle
to be moved,

its elevation to be altered.

This may well be the most
complicated bronze object

ever created by man,

formed from
more than 3,000 separate pieces.

The charioteer -
what a piece of work he is.

He's got a sword in his belt,
he's got arrows by his side.

And look at these horses -

these are the horses
of the Mongolian steppe,

with their pronounced haunches,

their startled eyes,
the flare of their nostrils,

the folds of their skin -

all rendered in cast bronze.

So, what are these objects?

What do they represent?

What do they stand for
as works of art?

Well...
it used to be heresy to say so

in Communist China...

..but now
it's a commonly-held opinion

that what they represent
in terms of art history

is actually...

[whispers] ..the first
great influence of the West

on the art of China.

Previously, there had been
no Chinese tradition

of realistic
figurative sculpture -

images of man
that looked like man.

This is Western realism
applied to Chinese beliefs.

In the Ancient World,

only the Greeks
had created such art.

And how might the First Emperor
have seen Greek sculpture?

100 years earlier, in the time
of Alexander the Great,

Greeks had settled as far east
as Afghanistan

and may well have been trading
with the Chinese

along the Silk Road.

This was the harshest corner
of this land,

the far north-west,

the corridor between
the Mongolian steppes

and the mountains of Tibet.

Through this windswept desert

came not only foreign styles
of art,

but foreign beliefs that would
transform Chinese civilisation.

The Silk Road is a modern name
for the ancient network

of trade routes that formed
cross-continent,

linking Europe and Asia.

Through this perilous
and epic path,

merchants,
soldiers and monks arrived.

Now, you could read about it
in a book,

you can look at it on a map

but nothing quite prepares you
for the experience

of actually walking along
the Silk Road -

thousands of miles
of unendingly hostile terrain.

And yet...this was the route,
the only route,

for merchants carrying
silk and spices

from China to the outside world

and carrying Western or Indian
goods back into China.

Travelling the Silk Road
wasn't just arduous,

it was extremely dangerous.

On the one hand, there were
roving groups of bandits

ready to steal your treasure
and kill you.

On the other hand,
there was nature -

the sand dunes and their
ever-shifting configurations.

Sand storms blowing in.

Sometimes the only way you'd
know you were on the right path

was because you'd come across
a little heap

of bleached-white human bones.

In 206 BC, just five years
after the First Emperor's death

the Qin Dynasty gave way
to the outward-looking Han.

The new rulers expanded,
defeating the nomads,

who'd dominated
these desert lands.

Frontier towns were created
to control

both the newly-extended borders
and the growing trade.

One of the biggest,
built on an oasis, was Dunhuang.

2,000 years ago, travellers
and merchants grew rich here

from the blossoming trade
of the Silk Road.

But the travellers from the West
brought more than goods.

They brought their ideas
and their gods.

None had greater impact on China
than Buddhism.

From the 3rd century,

Buddhism spread rapidly
among the Chinese

offering them
a joyful alternative

to their own grimly-limiting
visions of the afterlife.

Suddenly,
even the poorest person

could hope to be reincarnated
into a better life

and eventually achieve nirvana,

the Buddhist state
of transcendent peace.

[bell chimes]

The religion's beginnings
in China were humble.

Simple monks' caves
cut into the rocks

by the side of the Silk Road,

where travellers would give
thanks or pray for safe passage.

Soon, the prayers
were accompanied by art.

At the beginning of
the 20th century,

just outside Dunhuang,

the most remarkable examples
of this early Buddhist art

were rediscovered,

concealed beneath
1,000 years of sand.

The Mogao cave complex

is a labyrinth
of hundreds of temples

hewn into the rock face.

The earliest date back
to 336 AD.

Within them,
45,000 square metres

of extraordinary
Buddhist painting.

2,000 sculptures of Buddhas,
bodhisattvas,

guardians and devotees

all document the evolution
of Chinese life

over the best part
of a millennium.

This...this is a treat.

All of the paintings
and sculptures in this space

were created
more than 1,500 years ago.

This is one of
the most spectacular sequences

of early painting
anywhere in the world,

not just in Dunhuang.

What do we see...?

The principal image
of the Buddha and all around us,

what must have seemed

to Chinese people
in the 6th century

astonishingly exotic,
foreign, alien faces.

Look at this
fantastically Indian Buddha.

This is Indian art
and Indian religion

transplanted to Chinese soil.

Remember,
the Chinese up to this point,

really, they were used to their
sacred spaces being underground.

Now they're 100 feet
up in the air,

contemplating a theatre of
Buddhist imagery. Now, look...

..the sculptures force you
to your knees.

Because only
when you go to your knees

do you meet their eyes.

And then, when you do look up...

..you see these processions of
figures going around the walls

and what you see are these...

..wonderfully stark,
very quickly-painted, impulsive,

expressionistic images
of the Buddha teaching,

the Buddha meditating.
Here he is...

..during that time when he
set out to meditate for 49 days

and demons and devils
and poisonous snakes came

to tempt and distract him.

Perhaps they were meant to be
the demons of the mind.

One of the messages
of this space

is that there are many Buddhas.

That any individual
can rise to Buddha-hood.

You see that in the lower
register of the paintings,

where you have these
wonderfully vivid depictions

of the roughly 1,200 people

who've paid communally
to have this chapel created,

and those figures
are matched by -

you see up there? -

these sort of plaques
that decorate the wall.

They are 1,200 Buddhas,

so the idea being
that each person

who paid for the creation
of this

might themselves
rise to become a Buddha.

And I think the principal impact
of this space might have been...

this great, seemingly endless
frieze of figures,

especially when you think how
it would have been experienced

by many worshippers
through procession.

You process around the space -
and you don't just do it once,

you do it many, many times,
perhaps as many as 100 times.

You say your prayers
to the Buddha,

you prostrate yourself
before the Buddha,

you continue to pray,
perhaps to chant,

there might be music.

The whole purpose of this space

was to help those
who worshipped here...

take themselves
to another space.

A space that, perhaps,
isn't even in this world at all.

[serene string music]

The Mogao Caves
reached their heyday

some 300 years later
at the turn of the 7th century,

with the arrival of

the enlightened and the tolerant
Tang Dynasty.

Under their rule,
Buddhism surged in popularity -

the impact can still be felt
in modern China,

where a third of the population
is Buddhist.

One Tang ruler even elevated
the importance

of this new faith from India
above Chinese Daoism.

Which is perhaps why,
at the heart of the Mogao Caves,

that ruler was immortalised
on a monumental scale.

Huh.

The statue that we're trying
to get a peek of, well...

it's fully 35 metres tall.

[pants]

Come on, hurry up.
I know you're tired.

We've risen so far
above the madding crowds

that we've actually come level
with the mountains, but...

[puffs] ..this is what
we're here to see.

The central cult image.

Look at that.

The great image of the Buddha.

Look at those staring,
tranquil eyes.

But...

..what's the great surprise?

The great surprise
is that this Buddha...

..this Buddha...is a woman!

And not just any woman.

It's a portrait of Empress Wu!

The only female emperor
in all of China's history.

A deeply controversial figure.

Much maligned after her death
by Confucian scholars.

More objective historical record
tells us

that China was hugely prosperous
under her rule.

She expanded its territories,

she laid out vast areas

of previously royal land
for agriculture.

She promoted business,

she promoted female rights.

She was one of
the great one-offs

in all of Chinese history

and I really like the fact
that SHE is the tutelary deity

of this great labyrinth
of Chinese creativity.

Professor Ning Qiang spent
seven years living at Dunhuang,

decoding the life and rituals
depicted in the art

of just one extraordinary cave.

Perhaps because
his specialist subject

is the life-affirming art
of Buddhism,

he's that rare creature -

a Chinese art historian

with a truly infectious
sense of humour.

So, Qiang, you spent many years
here writing and working

- on your dissertation.
- Indeed!

Does it bring back memories
for you to come here?

Oh, indeed.

And my favourite moment
is sitting near the tree,

enjoying my tea
and look at the Buddha.

Although I can't see
the Buddha's face,

- because of the building.
- Yeah.

But it's in my mind -
you know, you just feel it.

The Buddha, the tree and you.

You are sitting with history
and you ARE history, see.

I like that.

Didn't the Buddha
reach enlightenment

sitting under a tree?

Indeed!
Yes, it's the same thing!

[laughs] Indeed!

The professor's cave contains
the first known Chinese image

of the Buddhist
western paradise -

the Pure Land.

A painting that looks like
a faded but richly-embroidered

piece of silk

and which shows the blessed

healed of all illness
or deformity,

listening to music
among scented trees

in a garden
where magical waters flow.

Stark contrast with
the barren deserts outside.

On the opposite wall

there's a picture of an actual
Buddhist healing ritual.

Apt, since Buddhism helped
to heal the Chinese soul,

bruised by conflict and tyranny.

Tell me a little bit
about these figures.

When I saw this, I was
absolutely struck by, well,

particularly this dancer,

which is so delicately,
beautifully depicted.

- You know, the healing ritual

requires a kind of
celebrative environment

for the Buddha, right?

So you have dance
and you have music.

Dance are called...

[speaks foreign language]

..or 'foreign whirly dance'

and you just turn around
and very fast,

you wave your scarves.

But you never leave
the small carpet,

so it is called 'whirly dance'.

And look at these musicians.

- I love this scene.

- They are just a combination
of musicians

from different regions,
you see - probably from India.

- I was going to say,
she is from India.

- Yes.

So here, what you
are looking at is actually

the dance and the music culture
of the Silk Road.

- Having been on this journey
through Chinese art,

for a long stretch of history
one is looking at bronze vessels

and then suddenly,
there's the terracotta soldiers,

but you don't really have
a sense of people's lives

from the art.

- When suddenly...
- Yes.

..you come here and it...

it all explodes.

That's the excitement
of Dunhuang art.

- The past is another country,

but at Dunhuang
you can still travel through it

with your eyes
and your imagination.

Here, at last,
are the people of ancient China,

fully revealed in art.

Falling in love.

Falling into prison...
and being released.

Liberty or containment?

The Chinese have always been
striving for freedom

while contending with those
who would control them.

That's the great revelation

of the recent
archaeological finds.

We knew it was true
of Communist China

but now, it seems,
it's always been so...

..ever since
the people of Sanxingdui,

with their idiosyncrasies,
were succeeded

by the fiercely-controlling
Shang Dynasty,

with its mastery
of the written word,

followed by

the chillingly-bureaucratic
First Emperor.

Dunhuang is exhilarating

because it's such a triumphant
assertion of Chinese freedom.

Freedom of belief.

Freedom of expression.

This is life itself,
body and soul.

Even the startled donkey.
ears pricked up,

trembles with the sense
of individual consciousness.

I think it's also a discovery

that's changed
the Western stereotypical view

of the Chinese
cultural identity.

Often, we in the West
tend to think of the Chinese

as a people who have
too much regard, perhaps,

for their own traditions.

A people who are still teaching
their children -

2,500 years
after Confucius died -

teaching their children
to recite his sayings by rote.

A people who leave
too little space in their lives

for creativity, imagination,
free will,

the eccentricity
of the individual.

But Dunhuang disproves all that.

Dunhuang proves that,
once upon a time,

the Chinese had 1,000 Picassos
in their midst.

And I think THAT'S why
this place really does belong

at the centre of any story
of Chinese art.

Captioned by Ai-Media
ai-media.tv