Hanging Painting of Yongbongsa Temple (The Vulture Peak Assembly)

This is a Yeongsanhoe gwaebultaeng depicting the scene of Sakyamuni Buddha preaching on Vulture Peak. A gwaebul is a large Buddhist painting hung in the courtyard in front of the main hall for great ceremonies and rites at a temple. Sakyamuni fills the centre of the painting, surrounded by a composition of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas, the Ten Great Disciples and other figures. He sits at the centre with his right hand on his knee and his left hand at his navel. The eight bodhisattvas standing on either side of the Buddha have oval faces and hold lotus flowers and other attributes, while the Four Heavenly Kings, guardians of the Buddhist law, together with Indra and Brahma, encircle the Buddha along with the bodhisattvas. The ten disciples appear in the upper part of the painting, and a bodhisattva with the same hairstyle as Sakyamuni is also shown. Red and green predominate, with pale green and purple intermediate tones giving the painting a calm, gentle atmosphere. This painting was made after a son of King Sukjong died young, when a huge Buddhist painting was produced to pray for the repose of the prince. It was painted in 1690, the sixteenth year of King Sukjong of Joseon, by the monk-painter Jin-gan, and an inscription recording its repainting in 1725, the first year of King Yeongjo, appears at the bottom of the painting. This gwaebul, in which the main image of Sakyamuni is reduced in size, is an important work showing the characteristics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and is regarded as a valuable resource for the study of painting history.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Hongseong, Chungnam

Designation

Treasure · 보물