The Line Drawing of Dunhuang

Between 1978 and 1979, Professor Jao Tsung-i lectured at École Pratique des Hautes Études in France. During this period, he studied extensively the Dunhuang manuscripts taken to France and discovered that the scrolls contained sketches on their ends and on the back of the manuscripts. He thoroughly studied these sketches and later he researched the same type of line drawing on the Dunhuang manuscripts housed in the British Museum. His finds were published by the École française d’Extrême-Orient in a book entitled The Line Drawing of Dunhuang. This was the first publication in this field, in which Professor Jao demonstrated using firsthand material showing this form of early Chinese human figure painting, a field that has long been neglected. This work also presented precious information on paintings during the Tang Dynasty. The book was first launched in Chinese and French. Its rarity led Jao Tsung-i Petite Ecole, HKU to republish this academic work in Chinese, English and Japanese. These new editions are illustrated with Professor Jao’s sketches in Dunhuang style.