Painting of the Lone Arhat of Daewonsa Temple

The Dokseong Painting (Painting of the Lone Arhat) of Daewonsa Temple is a Buddhist painting executed in ink and colour pigments on two joined panels of silk. Against a landscape background it depicts the Dokseong (獨聖, also called Naban Jonja, the Lone Arhat) seated slightly to the right of centre. The work employs an expressive technique almost identical to that of late Joseon-period (19th-century) portraits of eminent monks, as seen in its rendering of the face and in the wearing of the jangsam (long monastic robe) and gasa (kasaya, the monk's patchwork vestment). It is also notable that the fantastic rocks, waterfall, old pine and birds-and-flowers painted in the background recall a folk painting (minhwa), so that stylistic features of late Joseon Buddhist painting, landscape painting and folk painting appear together in a single work. The witnessing monk (jeungmyeong bigu, a senior monk who certifies the consecration of a Buddhist painting) named in the inscription, Gyeongdamdang Seogwan (鏡潭堂 瑞寬, 1824–1904), took holy orders at Baegyangsa Temple in Jangseong during the reign of Emperor Gojong of Joseon, and is known to have strictly observed the monastic precepts. Although the Dokseong Painting of Daewonsa Temple has some damage and an imbalanced composition with a weak sense of spatial depth, and is not of especially great age, it is valued as a heritage object of considerable artistic quality among late Joseon Buddhist paintings.

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Where it is

Region

Busanjin-gu, Busan

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료