Journey to the West (Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House 36-Volume Picture Book Series)
Produced between 1954 and 2001, this expansive thirty-six volume illustrated series is widely celebrated as the Green-Cover Journey to the West.
The Journey to the West picture book series from the Hebei People's Fine Arts Publishing House (now the Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House) is one of the largest classical masterpiece illustration projects undertaken since the founding of New China. Starting in 1954, the publisher organized renowned artists nationwide to compile and illustrate the volumes in stages, with 26 volumes published by 1962. Some original manuscripts were lost during the "Cultural Revolution," and starting in the 1980s, efforts were reorganized to revise and complete the missing illustrations. By 2001, the series was finally collected into a 36-volume set, commonly known as the "Green-Covered Journey to the West." This complete set was a collaborative effort by 24 masters of the illustration world, including Hu Ruofo, Xu Yansun, Qian Xiaodai, Zhang Lushan, Ren Luoying, and Wang Yushan. Comprising approximately 2,906 illustrations, the series condensed the original hundred chapters and over 600,000 words into a 100,000-word script. The artists drew heavily from temple murals, operatic gestures, and traditional gongbi line drawing, which serve as the distinct artistic hallmarks of the series. With nearly one hundred million copies distributed globally, a French edition was released in 2014, which French media hailed as "the most beautiful book." To this day, the Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House continues to hire artists to illustrate the five remaining missing volumes, such as Dream-Slaying the Jinghe Dragon and The Tang King's Journey to the Underworld.