Dancheong Painter

Dancheong refers to the technique of applying colour to buildings, or to the result of that technique, and a dancheongjang is the craftsman who performs this work. The scope of dancheong has traditionally tended to encompass Buddhist paintings as well, and modern training curricula still reflect this same understanding. The history of dancheong goes back to the Three Kingdoms period. Damjing of Goguryeo, Baekga of Baekje and Solgeo of Silla are all regarded as monk-painters who painted temple murals and thereby carried out the work of dancheong. Dancheong applied to temples and palaces, places of Buddhist faith and special authority, served both to prolong the life of the building and to lend it solemn grandeur. Even among buildings decorated with dancheong, the choice of pattern and degree of ornamentation varied to reflect differences in status. The main halls of palaces and the Daeungjeon Halls of temples, the highest-ranking buildings, were given gajeun-geum dancheong, the most elaborate form, while buildings of lower rank were treated progressively more simply, in order, with geum dancheong, moro dancheong and geutgi dancheong. Vivid patterns are mainly created using five basic mineral pigments. Early holders of the title of dancheongjang as a National Intangible Heritage include Manbong (Yi Chi-ho), Kim Seong-su, Im Seok-jeong and Hong Chang-won, and in the provinces too a number of craftsmen have continued the skill, each through their own line of transmission. Gyeonggi Province designated Kim Jong-uk (born 1937) as a holder of dancheongjang in 1999, and the tradition continues to be actively transmitted.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Suwon, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Intangible Heritage · 시도무형유산