Yongjusa Temple Daeungjeon Hall Altar Painting

A taenghwa is a Buddhist painting made on cloth or paper and mounted as a framed or hanging scroll, typically placed on the wall behind the main image enshrined in a temple's Daeungjeon Hall. This painting, located behind the Buddha statue in the Daeungjeon Hall of Yongjusa Temple, is said to have been painted by Danwon Kim Hong-do (1745-?), who was serving at the time as magistrate of Yeonpung County, but as there is no inscription at the bottom of the painting, and its style differs from Kim Hong-do's own manner, it cannot be confirmed with certainty as his work. The painting, measuring 3.2 m in length and 2.7 m in width, is divided into upper and lower registers. The upper register enshrines Shakyamuni, the Buddha of the present, at the centre, with the Medicine Buddha, the Buddha of the past, on the left, and Amitabha, the Buddha of the future, on the right. The lower register contains the Ten Great Bodhisattvas, Kasyapa and Ananda, and arhats and the Four Heavenly Kings; all the figures in the painting turn their gaze toward the Three Buddhas of the Three Ages in the upper register, forming a circular composition. The robes of the Three Buddhas and Shakyamuni's halo are painted in red, while the lotus pedestals are rendered in blue, producing a contrast of blue and red. The faces and exposed body parts of the figures are rendered in a brownish flesh tone. The brushwork is somewhat stiff, but Western-style shading is applied to the faces and hands of all the figures, a distinctive technique found from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and also seen in the works of the Gyeonggi-region painters active at that time. A Chilseong (Seven Stars) painting done in exactly the same technique is also enshrined in the Daeungjeon Hall of Yeongjusa Temple. This suggests that the present painting is not the original work by Kim Hong-do, but was newly produced in the late Joseon period by another monk-painter copying Kim Hong-do's composition.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Hwaseong, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산