Dunhuang Stone-Powder Painting

Dunhuang stone-powder painting is an ancient painting tradition developed by generations of folk painters of the Dunhuang region at the confluence of Han and western-regions art, the technical foundation that lets Dunhuang's murals keep their colour across a thousand years, and is listed among the Gansu provincial intangible-heritage representative items.

Its craft grinds natural minerals to powder, mixes them with sizing into pigments, and follows the mural sequence of ground preparation, drafting, lining, shading, gilding and glazing; the mineral stone-powder colours are stable and grow only richer with time, in the same lineage as the painting of the Mogao murals.

Dunhuang stone-powder painting is a vital survival of China's traditional mineral-pigment painting, carrying the colour code of the Dunhuang murals and holding outstanding value for the study of ancient painting materials, Silk Road artistic exchange, and the conservation of mural art.

The craft can be studied and experienced at venues such as the Mogao Li Craftsman Village.