The Flying Devis (devils) of Dunhuang.

Sehr gut und hochwertig. - From the introduction: The history of mankind is a history of. the struggle between men and nature and a history-'of human Iife and existence, and art is the flower that developed, grew and blossomed in the soil of this history. On -the basis of the production of stone and pottery articles' in as pearly as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, our ancestors, produced ; jade-and bronze utensils, on which they carved celestial deities and earthly ghosts, as well as strange birds and mystical animals. As communication, was gradually developed-and the exchange of culture and arts became more exclusive after the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring' Kingdom Period, the decorative designs-on the-bronze utensils adopted practical and light themes, presenting such natural scenes as spiral designs, hunting figures, flying birds, mountains and rivers. As the ancient people cherished the thought of immortals, they transformed clouds and animals of the natural world into imaginative; -fairies. Out of the desire to conquer nature, -they imagined about flying, and thus there appeared fairy figures . with wings, supported by clouds to signify flying.in the, sky. In the “Silk Painting of Ferig-kui Human.Figures” and the “Silk Painting of Men Riding on"¦ Dragons’*, both excavated from the Tomb of Chu at Mawangdui near..-Changsha in Hunan province" in 1972, there are fairy, figures with feather wings, flying swiftly among coloured ri clouds that moved in the sky like flowing water. In the pictures carved on stone during the Han dynasty preserved at the Wu-liang Temple in Shangdong province, there are figures of flying fairies-with-wings and spiral-'.and. wavy cloud-shaped designs. This is a special feature of Chinese art since the Qin and Han dynasties, and it exerted a certain amount of influence on the formation of the flying devis of Dunhuang.