With Chinese Cultural Heritage Day, the difficulty of restoring religious wall paintings has become a national focus of attention.

Fengguo Temple of the northeastern province of Liaoning's Yixian County is one of only three surviving temples dating back to the Liao period (916-1125), after which the province is named. There are 20 buddhist murals in the main temple and much of the artwork has been worn away by time.

The restoration was approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2000 but, so far, nothing has been done, said Wang Fei, head of heritage management in the county.

"The works have flaked and cracked after years of deterioration due to temperature, moisture, and dust in the air," he said.

Wang's department has examined the paintings many times, but most experts have shied away from the restoration, pleading that the scale of the work is beyond their capacity. No organization in Liaoning is qualified and willing to carry out the work.

The paintings are exemplars of high artistic values with rich historical connotations, and many such works in China suffer from degradation due to the natural environment and development of tourism.

There is a huge gulf between the need for restoration and the talent pool in China. Worse still, some works have even been destroyed by botched attempts to save them.


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