James and Lucy Lo’s mid-20th century photographic archive of the Mogao cave temples in western China inspired their younger artist friends after they moved to Taiwan in the 1950s. Together they created painted renditions of the splendid murals by projecting the Los’ black-and-white slides onto the wall and consulting Lucy’s meticulous notes about details such as color and position. The copies reflect the Los’ aesthetic sensibilities and their remarkable commitment to preserve knowledge of Mogao’s ancient past through acts of reproduction.

This painting was based on a section in Cave 217, known for its sophisticated landscape imagery. It illustrates a passage from the Lotus Sutra in which the Buddha conjures a city for the respite of exhausted travelers.