Geumseonsa Guardian Deities Painting

This Guardian Deities painting, now enshrined on the left-hand wall of Daeungjeon Hall at Geumseonsa Temple, was made in 1887, the twenty-fourth year of Emperor Gojong, by the monk painters Geumji as chief painter, Gyeongsun as outline painter, and Gyejun as master craftsman. Painted on a tall, vertical canvas, it is composed in two registers, with Jeseok, or Indra, as the central figure of the upper register and Witaecheon, or Skanda, as the central figure of the lower register, each surrounded by attendant figures. In the upper register, Indra is depicted large at the centre, with six attendants standing around him, facing towards him. Indra wears an elaborately decorated jewelled crown and holds a white lotus bud lightly in both hands. His face is broad and full, almost square, with small, finely rendered features. Over a red robe with a round collar he wears a blue cloud-collar cape, and the hem of his sleeves is decorated with a bird-feather pattern — a costume that is the most typical form of dress for Indra in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To Indra's left and right stand Ilcheonja, the Sun Deity, and Wolcheonja, the Moon Deity, wearing crowns bearing the sun and moon respectively and holding ceremonial tablets in both hands; like Indra, they have dark green head-halos and stand in attendance beside him, so that the group reads almost like a triad. Above them are four attendant boys, shown either holding a ruyi sceptre, a symbolic wish-granting wand, together with a lotus or a peach, or playing the saenghwang, a mouth organ. In the lower register, Skanda stands at the centre, surrounded by some of the Cheollyongpalbujung, the eight kinds of dragon-spirit guardians of Buddhist cosmology. Skanda wears a crown in the shape of bird feathers and holds a trident before him with hands joined in prayer. Around him stand six further guardian figures, including a dragon king, a mountain spirit, and guardians bearing a bow and a spear. The eight kinds of guardians shown here differ from the orthodox iconography of such figures and appear instead to represent indigenous folk deities. Red and dark blue predominate throughout, and the strong contrast between the two colours gives the subject a clear, legible presence. This painting depicts fourteen figures around Indra and the dragon-spirit guardians; compared with other surviving works of the same iconographic type, its composition is somewhat plain. Nonetheless, it well illustrates the style of Guardian Deities paintings of the late nineteenth century, and is among the comparatively early examples of such paintings surviving in the temples of the Seoul area. The canvas has come away slightly at the ground to the left of Skanda, and the surface is a little darkened by soot, but overall its state of preservation is good.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산