Note: Part or all of this painting has now been cut off the wall and stolen. If you see this or a fragment of this in a gallery or collection, you should inform the auction-house, local police or Interpol as appropriate.
Structure Type: Village Temple 村廟.
Location: Wang and Liang [Families] Village, Yu County, Hebei Province 河北省蔚縣王良莊村. The temple is located in a small barbican-like space at the northern end of the axial road of the village fort. The temple was faced, at the far southern end of the fort, by an opera stage. This structure is now in ruins.
Period: Undated. Late 19th or early 20th-century based on style.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: These murals are very unique. The two side walls show the Palace of the Northern Polestar 北極宮, the realm of the Perfected Warrior 真武. The Perfected Warrior is usually shown with ten or twelve generals; here six of the generals are displayed on one wall as male, while the six appear on the other wall as female. The idea that the Perfected Warrior has six female generals appears in one other iconography in Yu County, that located at West Shop Village 西店村, also from the late 19th or early 20th century. Around the Palace of the Northern Polestar, scenes from the Perfected Warrior’s Apotheosis 起聖錄 are taking place.
When I first visited the temple (spring 2013), only one of the three panels of the rear wall survived. This panel was located behind where the statues on the altar once stood. The scene shows the fantastic Western-influenced architecture of the interior of the Perfected Warrior’s city or palace, where palace ladies are scene to lounge about on railings.
Other Notes: This unique temple is something of a tragedy. When I first saw it it was already half-wrecked. Later on in 2015 the side wall was stripped, and since then the rear wall has collapsed. In 2017, the Yu County Museum finally took action and removed the one remaining half-panel. The destruction of this beautiful room is a reminder that village art in China is in urgent need of both conservation and documentation.
Highlight Gallery
Full Gallery
Note that in 2013-4, when I was in Yu County and this temple was still relatively intact, I wasn’t consistently documenting art and only had a small point-and-shoot camera with no flash. Thus these pictures are of low quality, both in the framing, lighting, and resolution. Nevertheless I put them up here, along with photos of the now-plundered shrine, because they’re all that’s left.
