Mountain Spirit Painting of Jijangam Hermitage

Mountain spirit paintings are Buddhist paintings created to seek longevity and worldly blessings; they personify the tiger that was worshipped as the Mountain King. As Buddhism became indigenised through its fusion with folk belief, the cult of the mountain spirit grew popular, and such paintings came to be enshrined in temple shrine halls known as sansingak, sanwanggak, or samseonggak, the Hall of the Three Sages. According to the production record on this painting, it was made in 1901, the fifth year of the Gwangmu era, with the monk Hwanongdang Hujin serving as witness and the monk Sugyeongdang Seungho as chief painter; Yeundang Sanggyu, Chang-o, Sang-geun, Yeong-uk and Geung-yeop took part in its production, and it was enshrined together with a Seven Stars Painting and a Lonely Saint Painting. The painting shows the mountain spirit, depicted as an old man, seated with an attendant boy against a background of deep mountains and valleys, with a tiger crouching beside him. The kindly-faced mountain spirit sits facing forward on a chair before a folding screen, wearing red robes and a black horsehair headband; his left hand strokes his white beard, and his right hand holds a white ox-hair fan. Yeundang Sanggyu appears to have used the same preparatory sketch for the Mountain Spirit Painting of Wonheungsa Temple on Samgaksan Mountain (1903, now held at Bongseonsa Temple, Namyangju), as the depiction of the figures, the tiger, the boy attendant, and the wave-patterned folding screen are almost identical in both. Sugyeongdang Seungho was a painter-monk active in the Gyeonggi region, and three Buddhist paintings he made in 1900 survive at Silleuksa Temple, Yeoju. The production record reads as follows. List of participants: witness monk, Hwanongdang Hujin; chanting monk, Gyewondang Seokgi; hall-keeper monk, Damyeon; chief painter, Sugyeongdang Seungho; assistant chief painter, Yeundang Sanggyu; monks, Chang-o, Sang-geun, Yeong-uk and Geung-yeop; fundraising monk, Daeo; provisions monk, Gwangmyeong. List of donors: a male donor born in the gapsin year, named Hyeon Myeong-seok. Enshrined at Jijangam Hermitage on an auspicious day in the fourth month of the sinchuk year, the fifth year of Gwangmu (1901): one scroll each of a Seven Stars Painting, a Lonely Saint Painting, and a Mountain Spirit Painting. Mountain spirit paintings from the nineteenth century rarely carry a production record, so this example, which clearly records its maker, date of production and place of enshrinement, is an important resource for the study of such paintings.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산