Ksitigarbha and Ten Kings Painting of Gaeunsa Temple

This Ksitigarbha and Ten Kings painting shows a group composition: at the centre sits the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, encircled by a round head halo and body halo, with two attendant boys below and, to either side, the monk Domyeong and the Ghost King Mudok as attendants, together with the Ten Kings, court officials, messengers of death, heavenly maidens, and hell wardens with upswept hair, an ox head and a horse head. Ksitigarbha sits in full lotus position on a lotus flower rising from the bottom of the painting, framed by a double halo of a round head halo and body halo. The head halo is painted green and the body halo is filled entirely in gold, giving a lavish effect; this technique of covering the whole body halo in gold became popular in the late 19th century and is found especially often in Buddhist paintings of the Seoul and Gyeonggi region, such as the Ksitigarbha and Ten Kings paintings of Jeongsusa Temple, Chiljangsa Temple and Hwagyesa Temple. Below Ksitigarbha are two attendant boys, known as the boys of good and evil, who record people's good and bad deeds. This motif began to appear from the late 18th century onward in paintings of Ksitigarbha, Amitabha and guardian deities, and grew popular in the 19th century alongside a social mood that stressed rewarding good and punishing evil, spreading chiefly among painters working in Gyeonggi and southern Gyeongsang provinces. Both boys have their hair decorated at the sides and crown with white lotus blossoms, wear a waist cloth over a bare upper body, and hold, on the left, a stick with an attached box and, on the right, a six-ringed staff. This painting was made in the late 19th century by Gyeongseondang Eungseok, a leading monk-painter of the Seoul and Gyeonggi region, and his disciples, and is a representative example of a Ksitigarbha and Ten Kings painting that includes the boys of good and evil. Works in the same format, all by Eungseok and his disciples, survive as the Ksitigarbha and Ten Kings paintings of Heungcheonsa Temple (1876), Jeongsusa Temple (1878), Bongnimsa Temple (1883), Gyeongguksa Temple (1887) and Baengnyeonsa Temple (1888); among these, the Gaeunsa painting can be regarded as the earliest. In particular, its unusually long, narrow eyes and very small mouth, with the facial features gathered toward the centre of the face, round startled-looking pupils and a narrow space between the brows, and shading around the eyes, nose and cheeks to emphasise the bone structure, clearly show the characteristics that set Buddhist paintings of the Seoul and Gyeonggi region apart from those of other regions.

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Where it is

Region

Seongbuk-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산