In 2013, the Main Hall was placed on China’s tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage Site consideration, along with the Wooden Pagoda of Ying County. In 1961, it was declared by the State Council as among the first batch of state priority protected sites.
The most important surviving building is the Main Hall, which is notable for its wooden structure and the sculptures in it. Today, only two halls, two gates, and a decorative arch survive. Then it grew quite larger during the subsequent centuries. The temple was first built in the ninth year of Kaitai period of the Liao Dynasty (AD 1020) as a royal temple. The Fengguo Temple is a Buddhist temple located in Yi County, Liaoning Province, northeast China. Finally, this paper summarized the craftsmanship and materials of painted sculpture works in different periods, so as to explore the development history of the painted sculptures culture.
The research results offer detailed documents for subsequent restoration and pave the way for preventive conservation. The grain composition and chemical composition of the base layer were presented as well. Through microscope analysis, X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopic analysis, the chemical constituents and hierarchical structure of the pigment layer were detected and analyzed. X-ray detection and the ground-penetrating radar were employed to explore the internal structure of the painted sculptures reasonably. The study target is to reveal the craftsmanship and materials of the painted Bodhisattva sculptures. The research subject of this paper is the painted Bodhisattva sculptures in the Main Hall. Now there remains the Main Hall with delicate wall paintings and vivid painted sculptures. With a thousand-year history, it is one of the three existing temples of the Liao Dynasty in China. As a royal temple, the Fengguo Temple has profound historical, artistic, scientific and social values.