Song Si-yeol Statue

This portrait shows Song Si-yeol as a half-length figure in three-quarter left profile, wearing a bokgeon (a scholar's black cloth headpiece) and a hakchangui (a scholar's outer robe made of white cloth edged with black silk), with his hands clasped in front. Song Si-yeol, pen name Uam (1607–1689), was a leading literary figure of the mid-Joseon period; although his political career had many ups and downs, he was also a great Confucian scholar who devoted his life to the study of Zhu Xi learning, forming the mainstream of the Giho School and training many scholars through his outstanding learning. After his death, numerous shrines were built to commemorate and honour him, and among these were quite a few portrait halls and shrines attached to seowon academies that enshrined his portrait rather than a spirit tablet. The portrait of Song Si-yeol held by the Seoul Museum of History is presumed to be one of the portraits once enshrined in such a portrait hall or shrine. This work is a copy made after National Treasure No. 239, the Portrait of Song Si-yeol held by the National Museum of Korea, and it ranks among the better examples of such copies. In the treatment of the face, the complexion is painted in a deep flesh tone, the uneven contours of the face and the features are outlined, the upper eyelids are rendered with fine ink lines, and a touch of red is added inside the inner and outer corners of the eyes to depict the bloodshot eyes of an old man. The facial wrinkles are rendered mainly with outline drawing, with a heavy grey wash applied to the wrinkles of the nasolabial folds and cheeks, and a touch of the same wash added to the folds of the ears. In the outline of the garments and the drapery folds, no shading wash is used; instead, lines are drawn and then highlighted in white along the outlines and fold-lines to create a sense of three-dimensionality. In its overall format, this work matches the shape and dimensions of the National Museum of Korea's National Treasure No. 239 Portrait of Song Si-yeol, but its overall technique is coarser than the National Museum version, and it dates from the late to final period of Joseon; even so, it has a certain value as material for observing the technical changes that occurred over that period. It is also a work of value as biographical material on Song Si-yeol as a historical figure, and it clearly conveys the bearing of a Joseon Confucian scholar. Although there is considerable paint loss on the bokgeon headpiece, the face and garments are in relatively good condition.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산