Namhaeyongmunsa Temple Hyeonwang Painting

This painting depicts Hyeonwang - the king who judges the dead on the third day after death - at the centre, surrounded by eleven attendant figures (gwonsok) standing in a circle and arranged in bilateral symmetry. Before a four-panel folding screen painted with a landscape in pale ink on a white ground, Hyeonwang sits in a half-cross-legged posture at a broad table painted with a wood-grain pattern, with a chair backed by white cloth placed behind him. His right hand rests on his right knee while his left is raised to chest height, lightly holding a hol, a ceremonial tablet carried by officials; this differs from the more usual depiction of Hyeonwang seated at a table, judging the dead together with his retinue. On either side of Hyeonwang stand figures wearing official caps and court dress, holding trays bearing peaches and boxes; they appear to converse with figures standing turned away beside them, so that all the figures seem bound together in an organic relationship, and below them stand two further figures holding long-handled parasols. In front of Hyeonwang, holding tablets and bending their backs slightly, stand Daeryunseongwang and Jeollyunseongwang, the Wheel-Turning Kings; to their left a noksa (clerk) holds a register, while in the centre a figure kneels to report the sins of the deceased. The kneeling figure draws the viewer's eye, and the sense of each figure performing his own role lends the scene a dynamic atmosphere. Looking closely at the figures, Hyeonwang's skin is painted a pale brown, distinct from the white skin of the other attendants, with wash shading applied to his furrowed brow, philtrum and chin. His eyebrows and beard are laid in with pale ink and rendered delicately with alternating fine black and white lines; his eyes rise diagonally, his nose extends from his forehead, and his small red lips, painted in the outline-free (mogolbeop) technique, are closed as if listening carefully to a judge's words - all serving admirably to convey Hyeonwang's bearing. His red official robe, edged in black, has its folds rendered in a copper tone darker than the ground colour and is further decorated with circular medallions painted in ochre. The attendants' robes make strong alternating use of red and blue-green, producing a bold contrast of colour.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Namhae, Gyeongnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료