BOOK REVIEWS
HUA SHAN, THE TAOIST SACRED MOUNTAIN IN WEST CHINA ITS SCENERY, MONASTERIES AND MONKS. Foreword and 111 Photographs by Hedda Morrison, Introduction and Taoist Musings by Wolfram Eberhard, published by Vetch and Lee Ltd., Hong Kong, January 1974.
Vetch and Lee Ltd. have published many beautiful and outstanding books on Chinese culture in the past, and have just added another two to their record, both dealing with sacred mountains in China. The Vetch and Lee editions are well-produced bibliophile books with a dark-blue cloth hard cover engraved in gold with a phoenix, the emblem of the publishers, and a very heavy matt white paper is used, which adds to the soft quality of the black and white photographs.
In August 1935 Hedda Morrison, a photographer, and Wolfram Eberhard, a sinologue and serious student of Chinese culture, both living in Peiping at the time, visited the Hua Shan, one of the five sacred mountains in China. According to the foreword by Hedda Morrison, the excursion cannot have lasted longer than one to two weeks.
Considering the fact, it is remarkable that 110 photos of great artistic beauty and solid technical skill were produced in such a short period of time.
The photos are divided into three groups: 40 depicting the scenic grandeur of the five peaks of the Hua Shan and their various moods; shaded by clouds or shrouded in morning mist, or illuminated by bright sunshine with silhouettes of crooked pine-trees. Also, small temples dangerously stuck on cliffs, a ladder of steps cut into a sharp angle stone slab, top and bottom connected with an enormous iron chain to facilitate the ascent.
Then are followed by a group of 24 photos with details of the monasteries, close-ups of the images inside, a mural of the god of thunder, and the graffiti of visitors, a perpetual calendar carved in a slab, embroideries representing shaman dancers, a monk dozing