Gyeong Am-dang Portrait of Yongmunsa Temple, Namhae

Gyeong Am-dang, positioned at the centre of the painting, is shown in a three-quarter left-facing view, seated in the full lotus position with a monk's staff in his left hand and prayer beads in his right. The face is painted white as a base, with the outlines drawn in pale ink and vermilion lines. The upper eyelid lines are drawn in dark ink and the lower eyelid lines in pale ink, with both outer corners of the eyes shaded in pale ink; the irises are painted brown, with the pupils dotted in dark ink. The wrinkles of the face are drawn in vermilion and lightly shaded around them to suggest shadow. The hair at the crown of the head and the beard are rendered in short white lines, and the eyebrows are expressed with fine ink and white lines. The figure wears a white collar beneath a dark grey monk's robe (jangsam), over which is a red kasaya, a Buddhist monk's surplice, the two joined by green and yellow cords. Shading on the robe is expressed through folds drawn in dark ink, and at the corner of the kasaya draped over the left shoulder is an ornament of a green square bearing the yellow character '天' (Heaven). It is said that until the Korean Buddhist Purification Movement of 1955 he wore a red kasaya with the characters '天' (Heaven) and '王' (King) attached at its four corners. The prayer beads and staff are painted with the wood-grain pattern that became common from the 19th century onward, with the ring and both ends of the staff decorated in gold. The background behind the figure is a densely filled composition of cloud patterns drawn in ink lines on an ultramarine ground. The straw mat, occupying half of the picture plane, has a brown ground with vertical vermilion lines, over which a floral-matting pattern is depicted in white, yellowish-brown and black. The cushion on the mat is bordered in vermilion, with a lattice pattern in the same ultramarine as the background. On the incense table to the left of the painting, decorated with a wood-grain pattern, stands an incense burner with incense burning, beside a blue-and-white porcelain bowl holding fruit of various colours, with the pale-ink smoke rising softly.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Namhae, Gyeongnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료