The Heavenly Court - 9789004184909

Gesterkamp (Zhejiang U. Hangzhou) presents his 2008 PhD dissertation at Leiden University, exploring The Heavenly Court as perhaps the most important subject in Daoist art. The paintings reflect the audience rituals conducted by the emperor in his terrestrial court, but the royalty and royal officials are replaced by members of the the Daoist pantheon. The tradition stretches from the fifth century to the present, he says, but he focuses on the four sets of murals that survive from the two centuries. The best known is of the Yongle Gong (Palace of Eternal Joy) in southern Shanxi province, but a smaller one of similar high quality is in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and so is more often studied in North America. That of the Nan'an (Southern Hermitage) in central Shaanxi have been little studied in China and not at all by Western scholars. The fourth, completely unpublished even in China, is the Beiye Miao (Northern Peak Temple) in central Hebei province. Taking them as a group with variations, he looks at their history and development, iconography, ritual foundations, mural production, and personalization. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)