Painting of the Lone Arhat of Giwonsa Temple

This is a Lone Arhat painting (dokseongdo), depicting the Venerable Bindullo seated beneath a pine tree, rendered in the blue-and-green landscape (cheongnoksansu) technique. The Venerable Bindullo is an object of worship representing the Sixteen Arhats; entrusted with protecting the true teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha and with guiding sentient beings to salvation, he is also known as the Lone Sage. He is commonly depicted as an old man with long, drooping eyebrows. At the centre of the composition, Bindullo sits with long white eyebrows trailing down, his gaze turned to the right, his right shoulder tilted, and his right hand resting on his knee. A halo appears behind his head, and the red monastic robe he wears slips down over his left shoulder, revealing a gaunt, bony chest, beneath which he wears a green under-robe. The hem of the robe is decorated with a floral design, giving the costume, together with its red and green colouring, a very sumptuous appearance. To the arhat's side stands the stump of an old tree, on which a three-legged incense burner rests. Above the shade of the pine, white clouds spread out, with a little blue sky and a red sun showing through the gaps. The inscription in the lower right of the painting has been overpainted with blue pigment, making it largely illegible, though a few characters such as "offering" and "won" can still be made out. Because the inscription is damaged throughout, the exact date of production and the identity of the painter cannot be clearly established; however, with its dominant red and green tones set off by white and blue, and its well-organised composition, the work is typical of Buddhist paintings from the mid-19th century onward.

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Where it is

Region

Nowon-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산