Located along the northern silk route between central asia and metropolitan china proper , and serving as a meeting ground of " western regions " ( xiyu ) and indigenous cultural influences , dunhuang provides a continuous record of datable monuments , from the fifth century onward , showing the importation of the indian chiaroscuro style , known in chinese as aotu hua , " concave - and - convex painting , " and its eventual transformation into the indigenous chinese pictorial idiom 摘要作為絲綢之路上一個(gè)西域和本土文化的匯合地點(diǎn),敦煌藝術(shù)提供了5世紀(jì)以來(lái)西域“明暗法”風(fēng)格即文獻(xiàn)上所謂“凹凸畫(huà)”以及這種畫(huà)法最后變成中國(guó)本土繪畫(huà)筆墨風(fēng)格的一個(gè)可確定時(shí)代的連續(xù)記錄。