Note: This is a painting produced in the last fifty years by an artist who is passed away, but whose heirs are presumably still alive. I do not have copyright in any way over this artist’s work. I’m reproducing it here because (a) these images are of ethnographic interest, (b) I’d hope that shining more light on contemporary mural and scroll painters will ultimately be good for their trade, and (c) frankly, these people seem unlikely to sue me. To that last point: It’s possible to commission painted scrolls in contemporary China.. If you’re interested, email me and I’d be happy to give you the contact information of several painters we met.
Structure Type: Village Temple 村廟.
Location: Hebei Province, Zhangjiakou Cityship, Qiaoxi District, Yongfengbu Village 河北省張家口市橋西區永豐堡村. The temple complex is not located within the village but is set up in a small valley in the hills behind it. The Temple to the Mother of Waters is built over a natural spring, which pours in little streams and pools down the hill, forming an oasis of greenery amidst the arid hills beneath the Great Wall, and now the concrete overpasses of Zhangjiakou City which have encompassed it. The place is now a small but surprisingly pleasant municipal park, where children go to play beneath the trees by the water in the hot, dry afternoons.
Period: 1982, according to the shrine-keepers I spoke with. The temple complex at the spring is of course much older, and several heavily-effaced old steles attest to this.
Artist: Wang Yemao 王業茂. I had a long and interesting conversation with the old people at the shrine about this painter, who was well-known and respected by all of them. Wang Yemao was born in the 1920s, and showed a talent for drawing at an early age; whatever one asked him to draw, he could always sketch out a convincing likeness. He apparently painted this temple once early in his career in the 1940s, but afterwards the shrine was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. In 1982, when the temple re-opened, Wang Yemao painted it for the second time. He passed away in 2010, but several of his sons and disciples still work in the painting trade in the area.
Mural Contents: The murals show a standard Dragon King procession, except that instead of the Five Dragon Kings 五海龍王, the main figure is the Mother of Waters 水母 in her palanquin, surrounded by other female figures mounted on dragons and qilin-beasts 麒麟. The rear walls have images of the Mother of Waters with attendants. On her right is an image of the Goddess who Grants Children 送子娘娘, while on her left is the Eye-Glow Goddess 眼光娘娘. The whole assemblage demonstrates the close iconographic relationship of the so-called “Dragon King” 龍王 cult (in fact focused on the Mother of Waters) and those of the various fertility-granting and/or exorcistic Mothers 母 and Goddesses 娘娘.
There are two other shrines adjacent to the main one. One is devoted to the Three Emperors 三皇, while the other is devoted to the goddess Nüwa 女媧. The Nüwa shrines has elaborate recent murals of female musicians, painted in a different hand from Wang Yemao’s; I didn’t ask who the artist for this hall was. It’s a good example of a more recent mural style, seemingly associated with art-school graduates from the 2000s.
Other Notes: I’ve included this mainly because it’s a rare example, east of the Yellow River, of the survival of competent traditional mural painting into the post-Maoist period. All of the decent paintings I’ve seen in these areas were executed by painters who trained before the Cultural Revolution. Despite the claim that Wang Yemao had disciples, the tradition seems quite moribund in this area today (contrast, for instance, the situation in northern Shaanxi or Qinghai, where traditional mural painting remains very-much alive). The few paintings in traditional styles that do appear are mostly frightfully bad.
The hall remains a relatively active religious site (the pleasant park draws a lot of visitors). The room was so full of temple paraphernalia that it was difficult to get good photos of the walls.
Full Gallery
