Master Cheongheo Portrait of Yongchusa Temple, Hamyang

This is a portrait of Master Cheongheo (1520–1604), an eminent monk of the mid-Joseon period. His courtesy name was Hyeoneung, his pen name was Cheongheo, and he was also known as Master Seosan. When the Japanese invasions of Korea broke out in 1592, the twenty-fifth year of King Seonjo, he received a special royal command and, despite his advanced age, sent proclamations throughout the country, raising a force of more than 1,500 monk soldiers and distinguishing himself in the war. The portrait is painted in colour on silk, showing the subject as a full-length seated figure in a folding chair, facing slightly to the left, with a footrest beneath his feet. In his left hand he holds a string of dark brown prayer beads, while his right hand rests lightly on the armrest of the chair. His face is painted with a yellowish-white pigment, its fleshy contours rendered in fine black-ink lines. The beard and hair are shaded with pale ink and then picked out with fine lines of black and white dots. His monastic robe is a dark blue-grey made by mixing indigo and black ink; the outer surface of his kasaya is vermilion, with an ochre-coloured lining. The folds of the clothing and the armrest of the chair are rendered in light colour, so that the underdrawing lines remain visible beneath. On the floor a hwamunseok, a flower-patterned woven mat, sets the figure off from the background; the mat is painted over a ground of hobun, a white shell pigment, with fine lines drawn horizontally in pale brown, or scored with a bamboo tool, to indicate its woven texture. This portrait shares similar techniques — in bodily proportion, colouring, line work, the depiction of the ears, and the treatment of the mat and background — with the Portrait of Master Muhak of Yongchusa Temple, Hamyang, which was made in 1781, the fifth year of King Jeongjo, suggesting that it was produced around the same time, or at least sometime after the eighteenth century. The Master Cheongheo Portrait of Yongchusa Temple, Hamyang, is of academic value for the study of eighteenth-century portraits of eminent monks.

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Where it is

Region

Hamyang, Gyeongnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료