Giyeonggak Pavilion Si Album

This album of poems was produced to commemorate King Yeongjo's entry, on New Year's Day of 1763 (the 40th year of his reign), into the Girosa, an office for senior officials aged seventy or above who had served as State Councillors or Ministers, marking both his seventieth birthday and the fortieth year of his reign. It is arranged, in order, as a preface, a painting, the king's own poem, poems by the ministers of the Girosa, five-character old-style verses, and a jwamok, a list of those present, running to 40 pages in all. The album was produced as a documentary record of an event hosted by the royal court, and it appears that one copy was kept by the court while further copies were given to each of the eleven officials who attended; as far as is currently known, this is the only surviving copy among them. The preface, recording the background to the album's production, was written by Yi Jeong-bo, who had served as Panjungchubusa (Deputy Director of the Jungchubu). Next comes a painting spanning two pages, whose subject is the ceremonies held at Yeongsugak and Giyeonggwan. The straight, precisely proportioned building on either side of the long vertical corridor at the centre of the painting is Yeongsugak, newly built in 1719, the year King Yeongjo entered the Girosa; the building to its left is Giyeonggwan, rebuilt from a western pavilion. Because the many figures all had to be drawn identically, four stamps were made and applied to the painting before colouring, illustrating the standardised production method used for this kind of documentary painting. The overall tone of the painting is a dark blue-black, but the bright yellow of the buildings' interiors, the red of the furnishings and the light brown of the pillars bring vitality to the otherwise subdued blue-black tone. The composition, technique and depiction of figures at Yeongsugak and Giyeonggwan closely reflect the style of the painters of the Dohwaseo, the royal bureau of painting. On the page following the painting is King Yeongjo's own poem, beginning "Giyeonggak-jeon chilsun gunsin" ("Sovereign and subjects, seventy years old, before Giyeonggak"); as the king's own hand could not be transcribed exactly, it was copied so as to reproduce his calligraphy. From the following page, matching the rhyme "sin" ("subject") used in the king's poem, linked four-character verses by the eleven officials of the Girosa continue over three pages; after this, each participant, over two pages, wrote a five-character old-style poem of exactly twenty-four lines, each precisely 100 characters long. This content corresponds exactly with the records in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, giving the album important value as corroborating historical evidence. The final two pages list the names of the participants; notably, among the eleven attendees, Yu Cheok-gi, Yi Jeong-bo, Bak Chi-hwa and Kim Sang-seok are known as leaders of the rival factions that were reconciled under King Yeongjo's policy of impartiality. The album is also notable as an accomplished work from the king's later years.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Seo-gu, Busan

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산