The Heavenly Court: Daoist Temple Painting in China, 1200–1400 by Lennert Gesterkamp (review)

Abstract

106 Journal of Chinese Religions is recommended to scholars of Chinese religion, religion and modernity, religion and migration issues, and China and Asian studies in general. NANLAI CAO, University of Hong Kong The Heavenly Court: Daoist Temple Painting in China, 1200–1400 LENNERT GESTERKAMP. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 96. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2011. xxiii, 280 pages. ISBN 978-90-04-18490-9. €140.00, US$199.00 hardcover. The Heavenly Court is a detailed study of one of the best known types of Daoist wall paintings, the court audience ritual. With an example acquired by the Royal Ontario Museum through a Japanese dealer in the 1930s and the publication of the Yonglegong 永樂宮 (Palace of Eternal Joy) murals in the 1960s, images of the divine court have long been of interest to both religious historians and art historians alike. Yet, the complex iconography of the paintings and lack of explanatory cartouches makes them a challenge to fully understand. By focusing on the subject of the chaoyuan tu 朝元圖, or “painting of an audience with the origin” (p. 1), from four different temples in North China and comparing them with a detailed study of Daoist liturgy, Gesterkamp is able to delineate the larger ritual context for this subject and locate areas where individual variation is possible. The book is composed of five main chapters with additional introduction and conclusion. The introduction defines the subject at hand and outlines the book. Chapter 1, “History and Development,” breaks the development of the chao 朝 audience theme into four phases—the “Early Phase, 400–700,” the “Transitional Phase 700–1000,” the “Middle Phase, 1000–1400,” and “Late Phase, 1400–Present”—as a starting point to explain the differences in content and style over time. For each of these phases, Gesterkamp uses available textual and pictorial evidence to determine the earliest form of the Daoist heavenly court and its potential change over time. The second half of this chapter is devoted to showing that chao audience themes in Daoist monasteries were the result of a long development in Chinese visual arts (both pictorial and sculptural) from the Han dynasty through the Song. Chapter 2, “Iconography,” is an in-depth description of the four mural programs specified in the Introduction. From the beginning we see the challenge of the topic at hand. Because “[v]ery often, no particular differentiation is made or iconographical attributes are given other than number of deities in a group, their particular location on a well, or the colour of their robes…” (p. 75), identifying the pictorial program requires detailed knowledge of the Book Reviews 107 specifics of patronage. Gesterkamp tackles this obstacle by contextualizing each site as much as possible in their geographical settings and summarizing previous scholarship. He then details the specific identification of the divinities depicted in each set of murals. Extensive illustrations and line drawings of the pictorial programs help the reader gain a sense of the complete pictorial program. Chapter 3, “Ritual Foundations,” connects the chaoyuan tu with Daoist liturgical texts to outline the conceptual framework within which patrons and painters worked. The chapter is divided into three sections dealing with different aspects of ritual and painting. In the first sections Gesterkamp summarizes Daoist liturgy and provides the reader with a narrative of possible rituals framed by the wall paintings. Following the same format as chapter 1, the second section outlines the development of the use of paintings to frame ritual space over time matching, as much as possible, the wall paintings with extant ritual texts. Importantly, he emphasizes that the images in Daoist temples had multiple functions depending on the viewer. Individual worshipers may choose to make offerings to divinities depicted within the temple. Yet, unlike the use of Buddhist icons as objects of worship, images in heavenly court scenes were primarily used to house divinities for particular rituals, such as the jiao 醮 offering. Thus, for the ritual specialist the paintings were a tool; present only to help purified actors in the ritual to visualize the deities invoked by the priest. Finally, in the third section, the composition of the wall painting is related to Daoist cosmology and altar settings. Gesterkamp proposes that paintings of chao-audiences can follow...