Samhwa Statue Portrait of Haeinsa Temple, Hapcheon

The overall composition of the Samhwa Statue Portrait of Haeinsa Temple, Hapcheon places three patriarchs together on a single, horizontally elongated canvas: a patriarch shown in three-quarter profile sits at the centre, flanked left and right by two further patriarchs, each also shown in three-quarter profile. The central figure sits with his left knee raised and his left hand resting upon it, his right hand lowered to the side and holding a hook-shaped ritual object. Unlike the two flanking figures, his face is tinged slightly redder and he wears a white beard, and a hole is depicted in his chest, suggesting that he was modelled on the Wooden Seated Statue of Patriarch Huirang, Treasure No. 999, kept at Haeinsa Temple; the long, gaunt face and small eyes of that statue are likewise reflected, in their own way, in this portrait. The two patriarchs seated to the left and right, each holding a monk's staff (seokjang), are drawn from the same underlying sketch used symmetrically, differing only slightly in the shape of their eyes, their hand-held objects and the treatment of their robes. The figure on the viewer's right has somewhat more drooping eyes and more facial wrinkles than the one on the left, and holds prayer beads in his right hand; on this basis it is presumed, though not confirmed, that Patriarch Suneung is depicted on the left and Patriarch Ijeong on the right. Between the three patriarchs, and at the lower left and right of the painting, are four attendant boys and heavenly maidens holding offerings; these, too, are arranged symmetrically and add little variation to the composition. The same symmetry marks the rock formations, hills, waterfall and pine trees used as background, and this overall repetition somewhat lowers the painting's artistic quality. The faces are shaded only lightly; the outlines of the bodies are drawn in brown and the drapery lines in pale ink, both executed in straight, even "iron-wire" brushstrokes. In this portrait, coloured mainly in red and green, the patriarch Huirang at the centre wears a pale lavender robe under a red kasaya (Buddhist outer robe) whose checkered hem is unusually decorated with floral patterns on a white ground. The other two patriarchs wear green robes with red kasayas bordered in black, their linings painted in a deep blue (samcheong) and shaded with a lighter blue (yangcheong) gradation. The rocks and hills are painted in pale ground colours, giving the whole painting a bright tone, while the pine trees, though their trunks are rendered in light washes, have needles painted in white lines on a green ground in an overly formulaic manner, a stylistic trait shared with other Buddhist paintings (taenghwa) produced in this period. Placing three patriarchs together on one canvas in this way is a format occasionally found in paintings of arhats (nahando); the treatment of each patriarch follows the conventions of portrait painting (jinyeong); and the depiction of the attendant boys and maidens together with pines and a deep mountain valley also draws on the format of mountain-spirit paintings (sansindo). An inscription panel on a red ground, set at the lower edge beside the patriarch on the right, records in ink that the painting was made at Haeinsa Temple in the 18th year of the Guangxu reign (1892) and enshrined in Haehaengdang Hall, with the chief painter Usong Sangsu and the outline work done by the monk Dumyeong. In its colouring and composition the painting exemplifies the typical style of the late 19th century, and as a portrait bringing together, on a single canvas, the three figures associated with the founding and revival of Haeinsa Temple, it clearly displays the distinctive individuality of the chief painter Sangsu.

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Where it is

Region

Hapcheon, Gyeongnam

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산