Munchanghu Choe Chi-won Portrait

This is a portrait of Choe Chi-won (857–?), pen name Go Un, a scholar of Unified Silla. Choe came from the yukdupum (sixth head-rank) class, went to study in Tang China at the age of twelve, and passed the bingong examination for foreign students at eighteen. In 879, during the Huang Chao Rebellion in Tang China, he wrote the "Tohwangsogyeongmun" (A Proclamation Denouncing Huang Chao), which made his literary talent known throughout the land. He had deep learning in Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism and was an outstanding writer, and was later granted the posthumous title Munchanggong. Two portraits of him are known, one kept at Ssanggyesa Temple on Jirisan Mountain and the other at Haeinsa Temple on Gayasan Mountain; this painting is presumed to have been copied from the Haeinsa version around 1860, the eleventh year of King Cheoljong of Joseon. It shows him facing to the right against a backdrop of the realm of immortals, painted in deep colours using nine pigments on silk. Painted from the standpoint of ordinary people who regarded Choe Chi-won as an immortal, it is a folk-painting-style portrait in the sinseondo (immortal-painting) format, and is a work of considerable significance.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Dong-gu, Daegu

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료