Amitabha Isibyuk Bodhisattva Painting of Beomeosa Temple

This painting, preserved at Beomeosa Temple, depicts Shakyamuni Buddha at the centre of the upper register flanked by twenty-six bodhisattvas, making it a Shakyamuni-and-Twenty-Six-Bodhisattvas painting. It is executed in colour on silk, and a range of pigments gives the iconography a rich, decorative effect. In the composition, the image of Shakyamuni is placed at the centre of the upper section, with the bodhisattvas arranged in three tiers to his left and right. At the lowest tier, below the knees of the main image, four bodhisattvas are placed on each side; in the middle tier, four more appear on each side; and in the uppermost tier, level with the head of the main image, five bodhisattvas are placed on each side. The flesh tones of the Shakyamuni figure were rendered by applying a yellowish-white ground and then drawing the outlines in pale ink. The robe has a vermilion ground with the folds drawn in ink lines and scattered white lotus roundels. The inside of the robe is painted in ultramarine and decorated over this with small white floral patterns. The undergarment is painted in malachite green, and its knotted section is outlined in ink over vermilion pigment. The bodhisattva figures are rendered in the same technique as the main image. The sky at the top of the composition is painted in a somewhat thick layer of ultramarine, with clouds in malachite green and brown arranged across it. An inscription at the lower left and right of the composition records that the painting was made in the thirteenth year of the Guangxu era, that is, 1887, the twenty-fourth year of Emperor Gojong of Joseon. The Shakyamuni-and-Twenty-Six-Bodhisattvas painting of Beomeosa Temple is valuable for the inscription at the bottom of the composition, which shows the conventions of nineteenth-century dedicatory inscriptions and allows the lineage of Yeongnam-region Buddhist painter-monks of the late Joseon period to be traced; it is also significant as a work linking the stylistic currents of nineteenth-century Buddhist iconography.

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Where it is

Region

Geumjeong-gu, Busan

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료