Not long after a bust looted from China's famous Longmen Grottoes was removed from a Sotheby's auction in New York, an exhibition in Northwest University in Shaanxi Province is making use of digital technology to "return" murals that were stolen from China more than 100 years ago back to their rightful place. Opening on September 20, the Images of the Kizil Murals Overseas exhibition puts on display digital recreations of several murals that were looted from the Kizil Grottoes in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"Along with The Mogao Caves, the Yungang Grottoes and the Longmen Grottoes, the Kizil Grottoes are one of China's 'four famous grottoes' and also a treasure house of Buddhist art," Ran Wanli, a professor at Northwest University, told the Global Times. 

"Similar to The Mogao Caves, the Kizil Grottoes are also famous for their mural paintings."

The grottoes of Kizil

Located on the north side of the Muzat River in Xinjiang's Aksu prefecture, the Kizil site is believed to have once been a major commercial hub along the Silk Road in ancient times. With 339 caves and a nearly 4,000 square meters of mural paintings, the site also boasts several painted clay sculptures. According to experts, a majority of the artworks in the caves were created between the 3rd and 8th centuries, which means that the grottoes are one of the earliest Buddhist cave complexes in China.

The cave was listed as a key protected cultural relic site in China in 1961 and in 2014 was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.

While the cave complex was once a treasure trove of valuable relics, sadly it did not remain that way. At the end of the 19th century, when exploration trends hit the Western world, the cave was visited by numerous expeditions from Russia, Britain, France and Germany, and even Asian countries like Japan. Each time, these exhibitions would take artworks such as the murals or statues back with them when they returned to their home countries, and from there these relics entered the collections of museums or private collectors around the world. 

Among the countries where these looted relics were taken, Germany has the largest amount of Kizil murals. 

In place of these relics, all that remains are broken walls covered in scratches, a devastating loss for China.

The current exhibition is an attempt to use modern technology to restore these losses to some degree. The exhibition is divided into two main sections. The first section features 125 highly detailed picture boards that were created by scanning and digitizing the original works, while the second section consists of two rooms that recreate what four of the grottoes would have looked like before being looted by overseas expeditions as well as a virtual reality (VR) exhibit that allow visitors to see a 3D recreation of the grottoes by donning VR glasses.

"The most impressive part for me is how they restored the murals by using digital technology," Li Yang, a visitor who graduated from Northwest University, told the Global Times while commenting on the VR exhibition. 

"I can see how these murals fit into the context of the grotto, instead of just viewing a single picture or image."

Li noted that there are some areas of the exhibition that still need improvement. 

"This is a good attempt, but it might be a bit too hard for amateurs since the text panels only list the name of the Buddha or the painted scene. For those who are not familiar with the stories related to Buddhist art, it might be hard to understand the paintings," Li said.

Future return

A great number of other Chinese treasures share the same fate as the looted murals.

"I have to say that the looted murals from the Kizil Grottes are a sad part of history for all scholars in China," a frustrated looking Ran said when speaking of the stolen treasures. 

"I really hope that one day these murals can be returned to their homeland, just like the stolen Great Sphinx's beard was returned to Egypt," Ran said.

The beard of the Great Sphinx of Giza, a limestone statue depicting the famous mythological half-man half-lion creature, was plundered and taken to Britain in 1817. It was finally returned to Egypt in 1982 after repeated requests by the Egyptian government. 

"We all feel bad about the loss of the artworks at the Mogao Caves, which were plundered by foreigners from nearly all over the world. And here we had the same thing happen in Xinjiang," said Ran.

The exhibition is set to end on October 20.

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