Damyangmiam Hermitage Shrine

Miam-sadang is the shrine of Yu Hui-chun (1513–1577), sobriquet Miam, a distinguished official of the early years of King Seonjo's reign in the Joseon dynasty. Yu Hui-chun was a civil official of the mid-Joseon period whose courtesy name was Anjung and whose sobriquets were Miam and Injae. His clan seat was Seonsan; he was born as the second son of Yu Gye-rin, who had moved from Suncheon to Haenam, and was, through his mother's line, a grandson of Choe Bu (sobriquet Geumnam, 1454–1504). He passed the lower civil examination in 1537, the sixth year of King Jungjong, and the higher civil examination the following year, after which he held posts including Hagyu of Seonggyungwan, Compiler of Yemungwan, Suchan of Hongmungwan, and Magistrate of Mujang-hyeon, before being dismissed from office in the Eulsa Purge. In 1547, the second year of King Myeongjong, he was exiled to Jeju over the 'Yangjae Station wall-poster incident', and was then moved to Jongseong in Hamgyeong-do, spending nineteen years in exile in all. Returning from exile in 1567, he went on to serve as Bujehak, Rector of Seonggyungwan, Inspector-General of Saheonbu, and Second Minister of Personnel. The shrine is a timber building, three bays across the front and one bay deep, with a gable roof, standing to the north-east of the family's head house. It is built on a foundation of roughly coursed fieldstone about 60 cm high, and the eaves over the front bay project comparatively far, giving good protection from wind and rain. Round columns stand on tumbled stone plinths, and the bracketing combines the column-top-bracket style with an elaborated single bracket arm. The bracket arms are carved with a paired flower-bud profile on their sloped underside and are topped with small blocks and head blocks, above which sit beams meeting at the eaves, their outer ends carved in the form of a phoenix head. The frame has one row of tall inner columns and five purlins: the short outer columns at the sides are low, while the tall inner columns in the body of the frame rise to the same height as the king-post above the main beam. Above the king-post and the inner columns a ridge beam is laid, supporting the ridge purlin by means of a bracket-support and a lotus-leaf-shaped strut. The roof has double eaves at the front and single eaves at the rear, with sturdy common rafters topped by flying rafters, and the gable ends are fitted with wind boards. All three bays of the front are fitted with doors, but in practice only the central door is used. Above the door frames, on the outer wall, are three mural panels, one per bay, each about 180 cm by 60 cm. The murals show, from left to right, a White Crane, an Ascending Dragon, and a Phoenix. Both the interior and exterior of the building are decorated with dancheong, the traditional multicoloured paintwork used on Korean wooden buildings. At a height of about 150 cm from the floor, a spirit-tablet platform has been installed on all three interior walls. On this platform is kept, in a woven chest, the winter garment that King Seonjo personally bestowed on Yu Hui-chun when the latter retired and returned to the countryside in 1577; and on the outer west wall of the building hangs the frame of the single-horse carriage that Yu Hui-chun himself once rode. The shrine is enclosed on all four sides by an earthen wall, within which a pair of ginkgo trees has been planted, and the entrance is a single-pillar gate. There is no ridge-beam inscription that directly records the date of construction. However, when the roof tiles were being relaid, a flat eave-end tile bearing an inscription was discovered. It has raised borders about a thumb's width thick, with seven lines of relief characters running vertically, which identify it as a tile made in 1608, the thirty-sixth year of the Wanli era, at Jingyeongsa Temple on Chuwolsan Mountain – thereby giving a date for the building. If the date of 1608 given in the inscription is correct, it corresponds to the generation of Yu Hui-chun's great-grandsons, the brothers Yu Ik-won (1579–1645) and Yu Ik-cheong (1582–1660). On the evidence of the tile inscription, the construction of Miam-sadang is presumed to date to 1608. It is not certain whether the original building has survived unchanged to the present day, but if it is indeed a timber building of the early 1600s it would be an extremely rare example; the building's form, in particular the bracket arms and the lotus-shaped struts, likewise suggests an early style. Even the present building would appear to be more than two hundred years old. It appears that, when Samcheonsa – a shrine honouring Miam at Changpyeong – was established, the Yu family hurried to build Miam-sadang. In 1669, the tenth year of King Hyeonjong, Baekcheonsa, a shrine honouring Miam, received a royal charter as Uiam Seowon, and Miam-sadang was designated a shrine exempt from the usual rule of removal after four generations; King Hyeonjong sent Gang Un-gyu, a Jeongrang of the Ministry of Rites, to perform the first ancestral rite. Originally the shrine also held, together with other items, eleven volumes of Yu Hui-chun's Miam ilgi (Diary of Miam; Treasure No. 260), 396 printing blocks of the collected works of Master Miam, and his personal effects, old documents and books. In 1959 these were transferred to Mohyeongwan, a stone building erected by the pond in front of Miamsa. Since its construction in 1608 the shrine has deteriorated considerably over time – it has settled backward and the frame is partly out of true – but overall it remains soundly jointed. In 1991 the roof tiles were completely replaced, and the interior floor and the outer earthen veranda were repaired with cement to prevent damp. The three mural panels painted above the door frames on the front outer wall of Miam-sadang, together with the murals inside the building, are of considerable art-historical value. The exterior murals show, from left to right, a White Crane, an Ascending Dragon, and a Phoenix. The White Crane represents Yu Hui-chun's lofty integrity, the Ascending Dragon symbolises the glorious path of office that he finally achieved when his ambitions were realised and he rose to high rank, and the Phoenix is taken to symbolise the family's glittering success. The murals were painted in colour over an earthen wall finished with lime plaster, but long exposure to the weather has caused part of the Phoenix mural on the right to fall away. Mural paintings are common on the outer walls of Buddhist temples, but it is very rare to find them on a Confucian building such as an ancestral shrine, and it is this rarity and symbolic charm, rather than purely artistic merit, that gives Miam-sadang its high value as national heritage.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Damyang, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Provincial Folklore Heritage · 시도민속문화유산