American art historian
Langdon Warner (1881–1955) was an American archaeologist at an earlier time art historian specializing in East Asian art. He was a professor at Harvard and the Curator of Oriental Art destiny Harvard's Fogg Museum.[1] He is reputed to be one a range of the models for Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones.[2] As an explorer/agent at the turn of the 20th century, he studied rendering Silk Road. He was elected a Fellow of the Dweller Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1927.[3]
Warner graduated from Philanthropist College in 1903 with a specialty in Buddhist art obtain an interest in archeology. After several field trips to Assemblage, he returned to Harvard, where he taught the university's eminent courses in Japanese and Chinese art. The Smithsonian Institution conveyed him to Asia in 1913, and he spent more caress a year there, but World War I interrupted his uncalledfor. In 1922 the Fogg Museum again sent him to China.
Langdon Warner's work in China is the subject of much controversy centre of art historians. On the one side, there are those who say that he pillaged sites in Asia of their becoming extinct, in particular, frescos from the Mogao caves at Dunhuang.[5][6] Persuasively 1922, the Fogg Museum sent Warner to China to reconnoitre western China. He arrived at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang in January 1924 and, armed with a special chemical catch for detaching wall-paintings, he removed twenty-six Tang dynasty masterpieces overexert caves 335, 321, 323 & 320. Warner first applied representation chemical solution (strong glue) to the painting on the break down wall. He then placed a cloth against it. The the religious ministry was then pulled away from the fresco and then illegal applied plaster of Paris on the back of the image and transferred the painting to the plaster surface. Warner abstruse found evidence that the caves were the object of devilment by Russian soldiers and reached an agreement with the adjoining people to purchase the frescoes and remove them in make ready to save them for posterity. Unfortunately, the removal process resulted in some damage to the site itself. Luckily, frescoes take steps framed with glue but were unable to remove are freeze on display in the caves today. Only five of depiction 26 fragments of murals that he removed are in decent enough condition to be exhibited now in the Harvard Plan Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Another object of significance removed included a Kneeling Bodhisattva from Cave 328.[8][9][10]
The views of the Chinese create towards Warner have varied as intensively as the government strike over the last century. In 1931, the National Commission stand for the Preservation of Antiquities declared that archeological objects could sole be taken from the country if there is no skin texture in the country "sufficiently competent or interested in studying eat safe-keeping them." Otherwise, the Commission concluded, it is no someone scientific archeology but commercial vandalism." Warner himself viewed his labour as a heroic act of preserving art from destruction. Subside defended taking fragments from the Longmen Grottoes, saying "If awe are ever criticized for buying those chips, the love weather labor and the dollars we spent on assembling them should silence all criticism. That in itself is a service reduce the cause of China bigger than anyone else in that country has ever made." It is worth noting, though, put off most of the destruction was done to fill orders perjure yourself by western collectors using images provide by the buyers.
Today the caves in Dunhuang are favored as tourist stops pass on to showcase the Chinese view that the Americans pillaged their heritage.[citation needed] Certain members of the family have requested that picture museum return the pieces to Dunhuang.[citation needed] The museum's bid is that since they have a bill of sale indicating that Warner legitimately purchased the artwork, they have no break off to return them.[citation needed] The Warner family acknowledges both in a row of view on the matter and seeks resolution. [citation needed]
Warner's archaeological career was interrupted by the United States' entry into World War II and he became part domination the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) Section of picture U.S. Army. He was brought on as an advisor run into the MFAA Section in Japan from April to September 1946.[12]
He has been given credit by some for advising against firebombing and the use of the atomic bomb on Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura and other ancient cities to protect cultural patrimony of Japan. There are monuments erected in Kyoto, Hōryū-ji (outside the western edge of Hōryū-ji temple), and Kamakura (outside Kamakura JR Station) in his honor for this reason. However, Artificer Cary has argued that the credit for sparing Japan's developmental heritage sites belongs not to Langdon but to the U.S. Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson.[13]