Hall of Literary Profundity

Figure 6.1: Hall of Literary Profundity
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Architecture Information

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Figure 6.2: Second Floor of the Hall of Literary Profundity	Figure 6.3: Imperial Couch in the Hall of Literary Prfundity

The tiles in the Hall of Literary Profundity are black and green.  The beams, rafters, and balustrades are blue and green and decorated by beasts and dragons� heads on the curving eaves and ridgepole of green tiles.  It is two-storied building (Dorn 175).  The room in the second floor contains cushioned chair, books, and scrolls, as shown in figure 6.2 (Dorn 176).  The calligraphy of the Chinese emperor Qian Long in the Ching Dynasty, which was written �An account of the Pavilion of Literary Profundity�, was put in the middle of the pavilion of the Hall of Literary Profundity (Yu 200).  Inside the Hall of Literary Profundity, an imperial couch was placed in the center of the room surrounded by bookshelves, which made partitions in the room as shown in figure 6.3 (Yu 200).

Detail

It is the largest library in the Forbidden City (Ru 124).  It stored rare books printed during the Song and Yuan Dynasties.  It also contained the original manuscript of the Ming encyclopedia, Yong le da dian, which has 11,095 volumes (Yu 200).  From 1772 to 1782, the Chinese emperor Qian Long hired 350 scholars to review and annotate over 10,000 volumes collected from all over the empire such as General Catalogue for the Complete Collection in Four Treasuries, Complete library in four branches of literature, and Synthesis of books and illustrations past and present (Yu 200).  Moreover, the Chinese emperor preserved the Suzhou style of painting through the Hall of Literary Profundity.  The Suzhou style of painting was used to decorate the upper part of the eaves� boards (Yu 200).  Today, these decorations are still in the hall.

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Created by May Wong