The murals of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, as a global artistic treasure, demonstrate how facial emotional characteristics in their depictions not only epitomize the evolution of art history but also reflect sociocultural interactions. This paper synthesizes existing research to systematically analyze emotional representations of figures across historical periods in these murals, emphasizing the persistent challenge of precisely defining period-specific facial emotions due to the subjective nature of emotion recognition. The study reveals a phased evolution in emotional expressions corresponding to sociocultural transformations.
Through a taxonomic analysis of emotional features, this research establishes a novel framework for investigating how facial expressions in the murals convey both affective states and social hierarchies. It further interprets the symbolic functions of emotional motifs in artistic creation, uncovering profound intertextual relationships between the murals’ visual language, social structures, and cultural environments. These findings provide interdisciplinary methodological implications for art anthropology and historical iconography, bridging formal artistic analysis with sociocultural interpretation.
We sincerely thank Professor Wang Shulan, Chair of the Department of Industrial Design, School of Architecture and Art Design, Hebei University of Technology, for her valuable guidance and insights during the initial phase of this study. Her expertise in Dunhuang mural iconography and her constructive feedback on the analytical framework were instrumental in shaping the early direction of this work. We are grateful for her continued support and encouragement.
Macau University of Science and Technology, Maocao, China Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China The authors declare no competing interests. Presented results do not contain studies with human or animal subjects. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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