Planning Meeting for the Tianlongshan Cave Digital Imaging Project

The University of Chicago Center in Beijing
20th floor, Culture Plaza
No. 59A Zhong Guan Cun Street
Haidian District Beijing 100872

The Buddhist cave temples of Tianlongshan were cut from sandstone cliffs outside of the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, from the sixth to ninth centuries. Their history is tied with three major Chinese dynastic periods, the Northern Qi, Sui, and Tang. Their sculptures are among the finest in the history of Chinese art. Because of this the caves were looted of their sculptures in the first half of the twentieth century. The caves cannot be understood today in historical or religious contexts without research into their former appearance. This has been attempted by previous scholars with the use of old photographs. However, the information from photographs is incomplete and the sculptures widely scattered and their locations not completely known. Many of the important sculptures and fragments are in museums in the U.S., including the Sackler Museum at Harvard University; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City.

With funding from the Carpenter and Getty Foundations, the Center for the Art of East Asia has previously carried out an extensive collaborative research project on the sixth-century Buddhist caves of Xiangtangshan, created a large database of images and information accessible on the internet, and has made plans for a major exhibition together with the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and the Freer/Sacker Gallery, Washingtion DC. Through this work the Center has devised the methodology and technical expertise to carry out research, 3D imaging, web-based archiving, and digital reconstruction of the Xiangtangshan Caves. From 2004 to the present we have placed photographs, video, and 3D models on the caves website have developed software for interactive viewing of 3D images and planned an exhibition together with the Smart Museum of Art and the Freer-Sackler Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition is currently touring and will be at the Freer-Sackler until the end of July. Please visit the Xiangtangshan Caves website for more information.

The Center for the Art of East Asia proposes to undertake a collaborative project for research and digital recording and reconstruction of the Tianlongshan Caves as an extension of a Buddhist caves initiative begun in 2004. We are now in discussion with the Shanxi Provincial Archeological Institute, the Taiyuan City Cultural Management and Preservation Office, and the Shanxi Museum to begin a collaborative project for compiling and archiving information and images of the Tianlongshan caves and their sculptures. We will also work with museums and other institutions in the US, and other countries outside China to locate sculptures from Tianlongshan and to implement the technological components of the project, such as 3D imaging.

Organizer: Katherine Tsiang, University of Chicago (Department of Art History)

BBC News: Digital Chinese caves preserve history