Pin, Liao (editor); translated by Xinglian, Zhang and McDougall, Bonnie S. — Yongle Palace Murals

Book Good Dust Jacket Included 1st Edition Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, China Chinese and English text.; Hardcover (with dust jacket).; 27 x 33 cm.; 1.2 kg.; 110 pages with colour illustrations.; Used with signs of wear on the exterior and interior. The dust jacket shows signs of wear, edge wear, scuffs and scratches and a small chip and tear at the bottom left side of the spine. Interior with minor signs of wear.; The murals at the Yongle Palace, a famous Taoist monastery built in the 14th century in Ruicheng, Shanxi Province, at the flourishing stage of Taoism, are one of the most outstanding examples of Taoist painting in China. Created in the 13th-14th century, the greater part of these masterpieces of religious art is still intact. Taoism, a religion native to the Han people of China, was founded in the second century and gradually gained its popularity in the seventh century, at one time even equalling the widely popular Buddhism in importance. Covering a total area of 800 square meters in the four main buildings within the temple, the murals with their magnificent composition and superb technique, occupy an important position in the history of ancient Chinese painting. The Yongle Palace Murals has over 100 full colour plates of the main buildings and the murals, with captions describing the contents of the murals and their artistic characteristics. There is also a brief intro- duction and an account of the removal of the temple to its present site in the late 1950s. The Yongle Palace in southwestern Shanxi is one of China's most famous Taoist temples. Built in the 14th century, it was originally situated in the town of Yongle on the bank of the Yellow River. When work on a reservoir on a section of the Yellow River started in the late 1950s, the buildings of the Yongle Palace, complete with murals, were moved to the present site north of the Ruicheng county seat, some 20 kilometers away.