Master Yeongeunsabeomil Portrait

This is a portrait of Beomil, founder of the Sagulsan school, one of the Nine Mountain Seon Schools (Gusan Seonmun) of the late Silla period. It shows him full-length, seated in a chair, in the left three-quarter pose typical of late-Joseon formal portraiture. Portraits of State Preceptor Beomil survive only rarely, and this is also an unusually rare example of a patriarch's portrait to carry an inscription recording its exact date of production, giving it great value for preservation. The portrait was formerly enshrined in the Chilseonggak, the Hall of the Seven Stars, at Yeongeunsa Temple in Gungchon-ri, Geundeok-myeon, Samcheok, and was moved to the Woljeongsa Temple Museum of Buddhist Art on 18 June 1999, where it is now on display. An inscription at the bottom centre of the painting records that it was made in 1788, the 53rd year of the Qianlong reign, by the monk-painter Singyeom and others. Beomil (810–889) was the founder of the Sagulsan school, one of the Nine Mountain Seon Schools of the late Silla period. His secular surname was Kim; he left home to become a monk at fifteen, received the full monastic precepts at twenty, and in the reign of King Heungdeok travelled to Tang China, where he studied under Yeomgwan Jean, a disciple of Majo Doil (known in China as Mazu Daoyi). He returned to Silla in the eighth year of King Munseong. At the invitation of Governor Kim of Myeongju he spent more than forty years at Gulsansa Temple; Kings Gyeongmun, Heongang and Jeonggang each wished to make him State Preceptor, but he declined each time. He died in 889 at the age of eighty, sixty years after his ordination; his posthumous title was Tonghyo and his stupa name Yeonhwi. The portrait shows Beomil full-length, seated at an angle in a chair, his face turned in the left three-quarter view, in the typical format of this kind of portrait: the floor is rendered flatly, without perspective, and the figure fills the picture so that little space is left around it. His feet rest on a footstool, a long string of prayer beads hangs from his right wrist, and he holds a monk's staff diagonally in both hands. Since a portrait is meant above all to reveal its subject's spirit through the depiction of the face, the greatest care is given to this: Beomil's sharp gaze fixed to one side, his small, firmly closed mouth, and the rendering of his eyebrows and beard are all strikingly realistic, seeming to convey the sharp yet profound spirit of a Seon master. His sturdy upper body is set against a thinly rendered lower body, so that the proportions of the figure are not entirely balanced. The blue-grey monastic robe and red kasaya, and the patterned mat on the floor, are all characteristic features of late-Joseon portrait painting. The relatively delicate and carefully worked decoration and pattern of the chair, however, and the whisk draped over it, are highly distinctive touches. Although the left arm and the lower part of the painting have been lost, and the background is somewhat stained, portraits of State Preceptor Beomil are extremely rare survivals, and this is also a rare example of a patriarch's portrait bearing an inscription, making it a work of great importance.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Pyeongchang, Gangwon

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산