Three Bodhisattvas Buddhist Painting of Ssanggyesa Temple, Hadong

The Three Bodhisattvas Buddhist Painting of Ssanggyesa Temple, Hadong, is kept at Ssanggyesa Temple, a temple founded in the Unified Silla period. It was made in the fifth month of the fifth year of King Jeongjo's reign (1781) by a team of sixteen master craftsmen (pyeonsu), including the lead painters (geumeo) Seungyun, Manhwi, Hongwon and Jisun, together with Pyeongsam, Danhae, Seungmun, Hamsik, Wangyeon, Yuseong, Chuljeong, Wangin, Bosin, Geukchan, Chalsam, Duchan, Geobong, Gyetak, Wolhyeon and Neungchi. It is a single wide rectangular panel (243.7 cm × 373 cm, made up of eleven joined sections with one mounting) that was originally enshrined beside the Assembly of Guardian Deities painting in the Daeungjeon Hall of Ssanggyesa Temple, but is now held in the temple's Buddhist art museum. In the composition, Cheonjang Bosal (the Bodhisattva of the Heavenly Treasury) and his retinue occupy the centre, Jiji Bosal (the Bodhisattva Upholder of the Earth) and his retinue are placed to the viewer's right, and Jijang Bosal (Kshitigarbha, the Bodhisattva of the Earth Treasury) and his retinue to the viewer's left. The overall design is arranged in two registers, with the three bodhisattvas in the upper register and their pedestals flanked by attendant retinues in the lower register. The painting is coloured chiefly in red and green, with white, yellow and blue also used. A red line borders the edges of the painting, and the area beyond it is coated with powdered shell white. The use of a pale yellowish-green is especially notable: this colour was favoured by Uigyeom, who worked actively as a Buddhist painter around Jirisan Mountain and Jeolla-do in the eighteenth century, and it forms one characteristic feature of Buddhist paintings from the Honam region. The stylistic features, composition and iconography of this painting were carried on directly into the Three Bodhisattvas painting of Seonamsa Temple, to the extent that it served as a model for nineteenth-century Three Bodhisattvas paintings across Jeolla-do, making it an important source for the study of the history of Joseon-period Buddhist painting.

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Where it is

Region

Hadong, Gyeongnam

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산