The art forms of the Mogao Grottoes are diverse and full of distinctive characteristics of the times, which embodies the popular art styles of the Central Plains Dynasty and local governments in various historical periods. At the same time, it is a concrete embodiment of Dunhuang culture and art, with distinctive regional characteristics, and also reflects the frequent cultural exchanges between China and the West on the Silk Road.
The art of Mogao Grottoes is mainly represented by painting and sculpture. Painting art emphasizes the combination of vivid description and colorful murals, as well as other painting art forms such as line drawing and printmaking, while sculpture mainly includes three-dimensional circular plastic, semi-circular plastic attached to the wall and high-floating plastic, which brings together many ancient painting and sculpture techniques, laying a foundation for future artistic inheritance.
The art of Mogao Grottoes is a combination of grottoes, murals and colored sculptures. It also has wooden eaves and halls, pagodas in front of grottoes, architectural relics of monasteries and unearthed cultural relics. There are brick and tile art, stone carving art, painting, embroidery, building banners, writing classics calligraphy, wood carving, calligraphy and other arts in the grottoes.
The Mogao Grottoes were dug in the Sixteen Kingdoms period, which lasted for more than a thousand years. After the Northern Liang Dynasty, the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Western Wei Dynasty, the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Tubo Dynasty, the Five Dynasties, the Song Dynasty, the Xixia Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, it almost covered the history of the grotto statues since Buddhism entered China, so as to facilitate future generations to understand the Mogao Grottoes culture and various dynasties, cultures, history, aesthetics and related artistic information.