Abstract
The 492 Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, contain beautiful paintings dating back over 1500 years. Mogao Cave number 249 is especially stunning for its ceiling paintings of exploding volcanos, billowing smoke and steam, blue sky with white cloud racks, swans in flight, hunters riding horses, deer running amidst exploding volcanos, a pouncing tiger, a stalking lion, a prancing bull, a winged horse, men riding dragons, and human-dragon hybrids soaring through smoke and clouds. A distinct stylistic painting technique of repetition appears in the ceiling in different forms. In one form, a whole figure appears in multiple stages of one movement: for example, one man riding a dragon across the sky appears in three places on the same panel, on the same skyline, in succession; but the positions of the dragon's wings and overall form and the surrounding clouds vary. In another form of the technique of repetition, one part of a body is repeated in successive overlaying images: for example, a human-dragon hybrid appears with nine heads fanned (like playing cards) along the back of the dragon, the whole head at the front of the dragon, and that head overlaying most of the one behind it, and that one then overlaying most of the one behind it, and so on, to the ninth along the back of the dragon. This same image (and the same technique) appears on two other ceiling panels, except that the number of heads is different in all three images, indicating that the dragon does not have multiple heads, but one and that its head is moving. The dragon's head would not appear (to a viewer) to move in electric light (e.g., a cold light panel), but under firelight conditions of the time-period, the dragon would seem to strike like a viper; while the volcanos would explode and the horses run, the clouds racks race, and smoke and ash would billow. Mogao Cave 249 is ancient Chinese animated proto-cinema. Virtually the whole Dunhuang cave system is a vast complex of cinematic chambers.