A classic of mountainous scenes

Li Bo'an might not be a household name in China, but his artistic legacy is nothing short of epic in its scale and beauty, Lin Qi reports.

In 1998, when Li Bo'an died at age 54, he was close to completing the 10th and final painting of an ambitious series of landscapes, depicting both the breathtaking views of western China and the dynamic lives of ethnic Tibetans.

Li, a self-taught painter and senior editor of Henan People's Fine Arts Publishing House, in Zhengzhou, Henan province, had been working on the project for a decade. He had traveled three times to the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, visiting Tibetan communities to sketch and painstakingly collect materials for the series.